
Glass 

Book. 7^/7 6 




»»!iii.i~t. 



<0-" 





A HISTORY 



OF — 



TUOLUMNE COUm 



CALIFORNIA. 



COMPILED FROM THE MOST AUTHENTIC RECORDS. 



San Fbancibco, 

PUBLIBHED BY B. F. AlLKT. 

1882. 






ft. j)>\% 



PREFACE. 



♦ This work, undertaken in the desire to preserve from 
oblivion the deeply interesting records of the short but 
eventful jDeriod of Tuolumne's occupancy by civilized man, 
has been carried out in the fullest form compatible with 
absolute accuracy. 'Whatever has been here set down has 
been subjected first to careful scrutiny, in the hope that 
the printed book might, in the matter of exactness at least, 
be worthy of those by whom its perusal is intended. .The 
limits of the story are necessarily circumscribed ) but con- 
sidering the merely ephemeral interest which pertains to 
ordinary anecdote, and considering the comparatively few 
points on which the attention of future generations may 
center, it has been thought best to imitate in brevity and 
accuracy the more pretentious works of celebrated histor- 
ians, and not allow the intense interest which at present 
pertains to the affairs of the Golden Age of California, to 
warp the historical spirit that should discriminate between 
that which is worthy of perpetuation and that which, al- 
though interesting in the vicinity of its happening, cannot 
lend value to a book which should be of permanent worth. 

'It was with the idea of presenting a variety of subjects 
relating to Tuolumne, that several persons were engaged 
to assist in the compilation of special articles upon topics 



11 PREFACE, 

of industrial or scientific interest. Of these, the publishers 
have to thank Mr. Louis R. Tulloch, of Sonora, for a sug- 
gestive and timely article upon Pocket Mining, which will 
be found in its appropriate place. 'Unfortunately, the able 
and carefully written review by Miss Tulloch, of the Bot- 
any of Tuolumne has been crowded out of the volume.' To 
both of the above, the thanks of the publishers are exten- 
ded, as also to Messrs. Randall and Roberts, of the Demo- 
crat, and the Messrs. Duchow, of the Independent, who 
have kindly loaned files of their papers to assist in the 
work.^The venerable Dr. L. C. Gunu and D. O. McCarthy, 
Esq., both of San Diego, also unhesitatingly forwarded the 
valuable files of their respective jDapers, when called upon, 
and their kindness is most gratefully remembered. 

In conclusion it may be said that the thanks of the com- 
pilers are due to many other present or former inhabitants 
of Tuolumne county who have generously lent their assis- 
tance. H. O. L. 



TjlBLE OF CONTEP 



PAGE. 

Arrival pf the Woods Party 1 

Settlement of Jamestown and Tuttletown 3 

The Earlier Arrivals in Tuolumne 7 

Habits of the Miners 12 

The Earliest Recorded Trials 13 

•The First Murder 14 

First Election in Tuolumne 15 

Further Discoveries of Gold , 17 

Town Government organized in Sonpra 18 

Religious Affairs ^ 21 

Discoveries at Columbia 22 

Administration of Justice 25 

Columbia's Sudden Misfortunes 27 

A Female Pioneer 27 

The Foreign Miners' Tax 28 

The Sonora Herald 35 

Riot of July, 1850, and Atterapted Lynching of Four 

Mexicans 38 

Mass Meeting and Proclamation of the Americans .... . 4A 

Business Affairs in Sonora 47 

Early Affairs in Jacksonville 50 

Hawkins' Bar 52 

Big Oak Flat 54 

.Riot at Hplden's Gardens 55 



IV CONTENTS. 

Murder of Newby by Fuller 60 

First Political Meeting ■ 61 

Murder of Palmer by Thornley ; 62 

The Holden's G-arden Chispa 63 

The Barry Papers 65 

Extracts from the Herald 71 

Murder of Captain iSnow and Lynching of Two Mexi- 
cans ' 74 

Lynching of Jim Hill in Sonora 76 

Vigilance Committee 79 

Organization of Sonora's Town Council 81 

Progress of Sonora 84 

Great Fire of '52 86 

Kebuilding 88 

The Chinese Question '91 

Diversions of Early Days 93 

Theatricals 97 

Affairs in Columbia 99 

ThejTuolumue County Water Co 100 

The Star and the Gazette 101 

List of Business Places in Columbia 102 

Mining Affairs , 103 

Social Affairs in Columbia 109 

"The Fire of 1854" 113 

Montezuma and the Hydraulic Ditch 115 

Mr. Murray's Travels 116 

Water for Mining Operations 125 

Social Progress 128 

Financial Matters 130 

Fires in Sonora in 1853 134 

The Miners' Convention ; 137 

The Inner Life of the Miners 144 

The Execution of Bruce in Sonora 147 

Murder of Parrot by Nicholas 149 



CONTENTS. V 

The Heslep Murder and Lynching of Griffiths 153 

Ditch Matters and the Miners' Strike 162 

Completion of the Stanislaus Ditch 172 

The Kittering- Worth Homicide 178 

Recollections of Colonel Moore 181 

Execution of Escobar and Sebada for the murder of 

Sheldon 188 

The Murder of Smith and the Lynching of Barclay . . . .190 

The Hunter-Drake Shooting Affray in Sonora 197 

Fandango Experiences 201 

Eobbers and Robberies 207 

Murder of Bond by McCauley 216 

The Blakesley Murder 218 

Hanging of Lyons, Poer and McCauley 220 

Columbia in 1857 -^.221 

The Miirder of McDonald and Leary in Columbia 223 

More Recent Matters in Columbia 227 

Fire of 1861 in Sonora 229 

Murder of Judge Brunton 224 

Military and Political Affairs 230 

Decadence of the Southern Mines 233 

Later Events in Sonora 234 

The Murder of Sloane 240 

The Bergel Murder 245 

Stage Robberies 246 

Railroad Matters , 249 

Sonora — Its Society and its Business 255 

Chronology of Tuolumne County 263 

List of Officers from the Earliest Times 303 

Geology and Mining 425 

Theory as to the Formation of Gold Deposits in 
Quartz 434 

Quartz Mining 439 

Pocket Mining 457 



VI CONTENTS. 

Gravel Mining 464 

Formation of the Auriferous Gravel Beds 473 

•Mills and Manufactures 483 

Quartz Mills 485 

Reduction Processes 489 

Flouring Mills 494 

Agricultural Resources oe Tuolumne County 495 



BIOGRAJ-HIES, 



Abbott, A 324 

Arnold, N. A 326 

Baker, G. C 323 

Bacon, J. B (Appendix) 39 

Baldwin, Dr. D. M (Appendix) 16 

Barber, H. P 401 

Barclay, S. C 318 

Barry, Major R. C 380 

Beauvais, A. B . 411 

Beckwith, W. J ' 338 

Bell, James 348 

Bemis, O. L 383 

Benham, J. A (Appendix) 7 

Birney, Hon. T. C 382 

Bishop, N 359 

Bixel, Joseph 325 

Blair, Spencer 314 

Blake, Dr. C. E (Appendix) 10 

Bluett, J. F 317 

Bolts, John F (Appendix) 44 

Bowman, John 374 

Bradford, S. S 397 

Browne, Doctor 407 



CONTENTS. Vll 

Bull, Horace 378 

Burden, C 404 

Butterfield, B. F 360 

Cabezut, J. M 376 

Cady, J. S 334 

Campbell, W. A 326 

Carter, C. H 313 

Cavis, Hon. J. M 408 

Chaffee, J. A 316 

Chamberlain, Judge C. H 410 

Chamberlain, J. P 316 

Chamimey, A. D 358 

Cheatham', Col 398 

Christman, E. L 400 

Clemens, Samuel L. (Mark Twain) (Appendix) 47 

Clough, E. H 345 

Coffroth, J. W 400 

Colby, A 399 

Colby, C. H 337 

Coles, J. L 330 

Covvie, John 388 

Culbertson, G. F 322 

Cullers, F. C 369 

Cunningham, Z. H (Appendix) 3 

Dart, J. P : 368 

Dinsmore, W. G (Appendix) 8 

Divoll, J. G 361 

Dorsey, Caleb 373 

Douglass, J. B 406 

Duchow, W. A (Appendix) 12 

Dwinelle, S. H 403 

Eichelroth, Dr. W. E 355 

Evans, Gen. George S (Appendix) 32 



Till CONTENTS. 

Evans, T. J (Appendix) 9 

Tales, Nathaniel 357 

Fallon, Owen 329 

Ferral, John (Appendix) 46 

" Ferral, Judge Eobert (Appendix) 48 

Foot, M 370 

Francisco, Albert N (Appendix) 47 

Fraser, D 356 

Gale, Judge O. P 337 

Galvin, E. E 378 

Gibbs, W. D 342 

Gibbons, Dr. W. P 420 

Goodwin, J. A 404 

Gorham, W. J 335 

Grady, John H 419 

Green, Alonzo .... : 408 

Greenwood, Otis 390^ 

Gross, F.J 337 

Gunn, Dr. L. C 377 

Hall, George W 379 

Hall, J 354 

Harper, C. L 403 

Harris, W. N 352 

Heslep Brothers 385 

Hibbing, William 370 

Hubbs, Paul K 398 

Hunter, E. F 389 

Hunter, J. H 338 

Hubbard, Winslow 317 

Hyde, W. H 321 

Jarvis, L. F 379 

Jolly, John 352 

Jones, J. M 401 

Jones, J. P 396 



CONTENTS. IX 

Keith, J. W 369 

Kelly, Patrick 402 

Kephart, H 33G 

King, John 359 

Lampson, Dr. R. M 339 

Latimer, J. B 359 

Levy, David 381 

^Levy, Louis 336 

Lombardo, C 328 

Long, Hon. W. G 375 

Long, Rev. Mr 394 

Lopez, T 371 

Lyons, E. G (Appendix) 3 

Macomber Brothers 414 

Major, J. W 318 

Mansfield, William .... 349 

Marshall,'^Hon. E. C (Appendix) 36 

McCarthy, J. W 418 

McDonald, C. B 399 

McNeil, Judge H. B 412 

McPherson, G-. W (Appendix) 8 

McGarvey, Judge R 398 

McPherson, Forbes 352 

Mills, James 402 

Miller, Sol . . (Appendix) 4 

Minor, S. B (Appendix) 7 

Mulford, Prentice (Appendix) 19 

Palmer, H (Appendix) 4 

Parsons, Edmond 347 

Pease, H. M 384 

Pease, C. S 330 

Perrin, Otis 406 

Potter, I. J 351 



X CONTIJ^TS. 

Pownall, Dr. Joseph 342 

Preston, A. B il6 

Quint, Leander 377 

Randall, C. H 418 

Raymond, E. S 359 

Robinson, R. A 413 

Rodgers, Hon. E. A 394 

Rooney, Hon. J. F 387 

Rosekrans, H. M 417 

Rudorff, W. G 401 

Rutherford, C. B (Appendix) 15 

Rutherford, C. B 383 

Sampson, J. A 413 

Sedgwick, John , 378 

Sevening, H 395 

Sewell, Daniel (Appendix) 17 

Smith, W. J 340 

Smith, J. H 341 

Solinsky, C. W. H 315 

Solomon, P. L 400 

Soulsby, Ben 324 

Stair, Alexander 412 

Stetson, J B (Appendix) 14 

Stoddart, T. R 389 

Stone, W. S 323 

Street, H. L 333 

Street, C. L 372 

Stuart, J. W 357 

Tannahill, James 321 

Tibbitts, Dr. J. P 415 

Thompson, H 396 

Trask, P. M 344 

Twist, E. N 319 

Van Harlingen, John 376 

Walker, Dr. John 351 



CONTENTS. XI 

Wells, Thomas 374 

Wheeler, C. C 386 

Williams, H. W 320 

Wilson, Wm \ 320 

Wing, Gideon 313 

Wing, Hon. Stephen (Appendix) 45 

Witt, T. J 402 

Wright, George 354 

Yancey, T. N 371 



HISTORY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 



'The history of Tuolumne County properly commences 
with the date of its discovery by civilized men; a date 
which a careful comparison of accounts would show to 
have been in the ea-rlj' part of the summer of 1848, at 
which time a party of miners — Philadelphians, as is re- 
corded — came to Woods' Creek.* This very significant 
fact may, then, be regarded as the starting point of these 
records. It was at this time that the western slope had 
begun to resound with the blows of the hardy gold- 
seekers, whom the unprecedented wave of immigration 
had moved to California, bringing the throngs of adven- 
turers from many lands to people the heretofore silent 
canons and gorges of the auriferous belt, and to do their 
wonderful works, for which the world stands indebted. 

'It has been poetically said, that, at the time of the first 
discovery by Americans, the country was one of the most 
picturesc[ue in the world. 'Noble forests existed, through 
which roamed the Indian and the d^er. ♦ Streams of crystal 
clearness flowed, fish playing therein in all the freedom of 
security. / The vast Sierra, bearing a diadem of snow, added 
grandeur to beauty. Pines and sequoias, the like of 
which can hardly elsewhere be found, tower heavenward. 
The oaks grew orchard-like in their regularity. 'Deer, ante- 
lope, wild fowl, in short, everything that was useful to 
man in his wild or unsophisticated state, here grew in pro- 
fusion, to his hand. This j)icture, though perhaps some- 
what exaggerated, was not unfitted to the time and place. 



2 HISTORY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTT, 

Even now, after the lapse of a third of a century, and the 
desecration of land, the defilement of water-courses, and 
the annihilation of forests, the truth of those pictured 
lineaments niay be seen, and one may lament the work of 
the pioneers that has destroyed so much of beauty while 
building up a great and glorious State — the brightest gem 
in Columbia's diadem.' 

I The party of Philadelphians may, then, be regarded as 
the pioneers of Tuolumne County, for aught we know to 
the contrary. ( As mentioned above, they discovered Woods* 
Creek, naming it after their leader, the Rev. James Woods,* 

♦ Those other members of the party whose names have been 
perpetuated, were James Savage, J. H. Rider, and Charles 
Bassett.^ The prime object of their search, gold, being 
found in quantity on the banks of the newly discovered 
stream, it proved a sufficient incentive to stay their pro- 
gress, and at Woods' Crossing, the first mining settlement 
within the present bounds of the county was formed. 

• Their work in extracting the precious metal proved ex- 
tremely successful \ so much so that, the news spreading, 
an increasing number of immigrants turned their steps 
towards this as to a promising field. 

' The next settlement was that of a party of Mexican 
miners, who, pushing up Woods' Creek beyond the Cross- 
ing, located Spnorian Camp — a name afterwards changed 
to Sonora-«-all the inhabitants of which were of Spanish 
extraction, until the arrival of the first Americans, who 
came most probably in the spring of 1849.' As to the exact 
time of their arrival, that is, and must ever remain, in 
doubt.t However, the weight of evidence inclines to the 
time above given. < Again, there is doubt as to the names 

of the first American settlers of Sonora, but to Keeler 

and R. S. Ham may x>rovisionally be given that honor. 
I The former, it is said, was the first to enter upon agricul- 



HISTORY or TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 6 

tural pursuits, he occupying land which was later included 
in the ranches of Messrs. Turner, Clark, Johnson, Ha,rrison 
and others. 

/ In August, 1848, Colonel James, a lawyer of San Fran- 
cisco, located on Woods' Cre^k, and entered into mining 
speculations, in the course of which Jamestown was found- 
ed; but as this perhaps too enterprising gentleman as- 
sumed liabilities which he could not meet, thereby distin- 
guishing himself as the very first of the long line of 
unsuccessful speculators in mines, he incurred the ill-will 
of his neighbors to such an extent that, on his departure, 
the name of the town was changed, out of revenge; but, 
after a period of existence as American Camp, the old 
name was revived, probably never to be again dropped. 
/ At nearly the time of Colonel James' advent, Judge 
Tuttle, arriving on Mormon Gulch, built the first log cabin 
in the county, the' previous structures having been cloth 
tents or Mexican remadan or brush houses.' This cabin be- 
came the nucleus of a village, which, in compliance with 
the custom of the times, was named Tuttletown. 

Exceedingly rich placers were now discovered at Pep- 
permint Gulch, and Mountain Brow boasted quite a set- 
tlement of men dwelling in te_nts. 

Among the more notable discoveries made during the 
latter part of the summer of 1848^ was that of Jackass 
Gulch, for which name the accidental loss of a long-eared 
animal contrib^J;ed, but which posterity will doubtless 
agree to have been quite as characteristic of a man who 
could give such a designation. 

/ Jackass Gulch, despite its name, immediately took rank 
as among the very richest of the diggings yet struck. / Its 
g^old was of a very coarse description, lumps of several 
ounces weight being of common occurrence; and it is stated 
that two of the earlier prospectors, Major Means and his 



4 HISTORY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 

brother Julius, took out from a claim of 100 square feet 
$10,000 worth of gold ! » Nor was the gulch limited to 
placer diggings. ( The same geutlemen discovered upon 
their claim a q^uartz vein which yielded two-thirds of its 
weight in gold ! ' Mr. Carrington's vein paid from $100 to 
$30,0 per day for years, by simply pounding the rock in a 
mortar, i Numerous discoveries of rich placers took place 
during the latter part of 1848, and the country rapidly 
filled up with seekers of hidden treasure, most of them, 
unfortunately, illy provided with means for comfortably 
existing through the ensuing winter/ Exorbitant prices 
and much suffering were the consequence^ From the 
annexed quotation of prices, it may be learned how scarce 
the comforts and necessities of life were. ' Flour during 
that time was $3 per i:)0und/ Hard bread, beans, coffee, 
sugar, saleratus, and indeed all the indispensable articles 
of culinary consumption, sold for the anrform price of $3 
per pound.* Salt pork, however, is quoted at the higher 
figure of $8,» If so, it would §eem that it was regarded 
in the light of a luxury* Merchants, it is said, no doubt 
truthfully, made speedy fortunes, both by reason of the 
high prices of their goods and the low price of gold dust, 
which was paid for at the rate of $8 per ounce, in coin, or 
$16 in trade. ■'Mercbandising, liquor-selling, and gam- 
bling stood nearly upon the same plane, if what has been 
written may be believed, and all three callings were un- 
doubtedly impaensely remunerative/ Gambling was freely 
practiced by all classes;* and the miner, after his day's 
work, betook himself to the monte or faro table, there to 
be relieved of his easily gotten ounces.* ' Spirituous liquors 
found an abundant sale at the price of $1 per drink, and 
the consumption, then as now, seemed one of the great 
objects of human existence.'' 

It has been often stated that the first women who arrived 



HISTORY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 5 

in Sonora were two sisters, Mariana and Jesus Ramirez; 
but the latter of the two, who is now the wife of J. M. 
Cabesut, Esq. of Sonora, disclaims the truth of the story, 
and says that the dis^inciiou belongs to other Mexican 
■women, of the family of Leon, who arrived several months 
previous. ^Less unassuming was Ah^ Chi, a Chinese im- 
migrant, who was the forerunner of the great and disas- 
trous wave of his fellow-countrymen. / This Celestial kept 
an eating house in Sonora, near the spot now occupied by 
O'Brien's store, and which was well patronized by the 
miners, being looked upon as the best kept restaurant of 
the town. ^' 

« Within the short space of half a year from the discov- 
ery of gold in California, extensive prospecting had been 
done, and the gold-bearing territory had been examined 
for hujadreds of niiles along the Sierras, and many ex- 
tremely rich finds had been reported.'' Notably this was 
the case in Tuolumne County.' News of this sort traveled 
fast, and this region, then called the Southern Mines, be- 
came the cynosure of all eyes looking for the fabled El 
Dorado. The reports sent by the earlier prospectors were 
probably not in excess of the truth;' but there came an era of 
exaggeration, of wild misrepresentation, whose effects re- 
coiled injuriously upon the new communities.,' One of the 
earlier writers said : " The main bulk of the immigration 
centered here. / * * But so many gold seekers brought 
along with them some great drawbacks to the prosperity of 
the country. * Hordes of gamblers kept in the wake of the 
industrious miners, accompanied by rum-sellers and aban- 
doned females;.' and no sooner was a camp laid out by the 
miners, than a large rough tent was erected by the out- 
casts; a plank, resting on two empty barrels, served for 
a counter; and in lieu of the " fixins" of a regular bar, a 
barrel of whisky, with a tin cup or two, and we had a first- 



6 HISTORY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 

class hotel and gambling saloon, from which issued the 
din of cracked fiddles and the chink of money, from early 
morn until late at night; and not infrequently would the 
sun find the gambling tables crowded and the game and the 
dance as lively as ever. * * * "WTe are even yet reaping 
the fruit of these drones of society. It was the result, in a 
great measure, of the vast influx of Spanish population, 
and has been one of the chief hindrances to a better a a , 4g r- 
standing between the Amencan and Spanish peoples." 
I The latter part of this writer's words are included to 
show the prevailing feeling which existed even as late as 
1860 (date of his writing) among Americans, against the 
Mexicans. 'Time has partly removed these injurious and 
unjust feelings, but they are not yet fully eradicated from 
the American breasts The author continues: "Hostility 
to everything American was originally engendered against 
us by the Mexicans during the war of 1846, and had not 
died out in 1849.W Nor is it to be wondered that the Chi- 
lians, Peruvians, and other Spanish immigrants who spoke 
the same language, had habit s and religion identical, and 
who were daily regaled with stories of the brutality and in- 
justice they had received at the hands of the American 
people. * * From the Spanish, the disaffection sjDread 
first to the Fi'ench, then to the German and Italian por- 
tion, and lastly to the Australian immigrants, extensively 
known by the euphonious cognomen of " Sydney Ducks," 
a name very soon to become synonymous with all kinds of 
fraud and rascality. «Accordingly, collisions became of 
daily occurrence. * * f Murders soon followed, and be- 
came so frequent that at one time it was seriously mooted 
whether foreigners should not be expelled from the mines. 
f It eventuated in bringing down upon them the heavy min- 
ing tax * * tantamount to expulsion from California.? 
i Thus far the venerable writer has been quoted, in order 



HISTORY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 7 

that his words might assist to a proper understanding of 
some of the events which took place at a somewhat later 
period in the county's history; events which, it wonld seem, 
had their starting point in that [most unjust and reprehen- 
sible war against Mexico, which had ended but shortly be- 
fore this history commences. 

/ Among the earlier of the arrivals in Tuolumne County 
are enumerated the names of Col, B. F. Moore, Florida; 
Emanuel Linoberg, Poland; James Lane and Peter Mehen, 
Ireland; Josh. Holden, Texas; James Frazier, Scotland; 
R. C. Barry, Texas; Alonzo Grreeu and Terence Clark, 
New York; /Dr. Bell and 'A. Elkins, Texas; /N. F. Mur- 
phey, M. D., Ireland;! H. W. Theall, Pennsylvania;/ A. W. 
Luckett, Texas;< C. F. and Theophilus Dodge,^New York/ 
Dr. Wm. Shepherd, Ohioj Dr. W. Norlinn, Germany; 
Casimir Labetqure, France; B. F. Butterfield, New.Xork; 
Dr. Clarke, Louisiana; C. M. Radcliffe, Scotland; W. H. 
Ford and Wm. Pusick, New York; Theodore Saunders; 
Charles Heffernan, Thomas Hill, Theodore Lopez, Lieut. 
Wm. Srnith and George R. Searle, New York (the eight 
preceding were soldiers in Stevenson's Regiment); Jacob 
Green, Texas, one of the Yucatan Volunteers; William 
Bowman, Texas, one of the Mier prisoners, who escaped 
death by drawing a white bean at the famous drawing of 
lots; Dr. Lewis C. Gunn, Philadelphia. 

• Among the more prominent individuals of the foreign 
element were: Miguel Lesqui, France; L. Rondina and 
Francisco Pavia, Italy; Luis G. Elordi, Francisco Escobar, 
Baltazeo Estaben, P. Rojas, J. M. Vallenzuela, Remijo 
Riveras, Jose M. Bosa, M. Neguro, G. Aguazo, Ramon 
Enriquez, Luis Ordas and V. Davilla, all of Mexican or 
South American nationality, and of whom the last named 
is said to have been the first jeweler of Sonera. The above 
named are known to have cqme before January 1, 1850. 



8 HISTORY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 

The following named came in either during the last part 
of 1849 or very early in 1850/ T. M. Van Benschoten, 
Louisiana;!, J. D. Patterson, Texas;«R. M. Heath, Charles 
M. Creaner, J. S. Ogier, James C. Morehead, Isaac A. 
Stevens, and James W. Co£froth, Ohio; Leander Quint, 
Maine; A. W. Richardson and H. P. Barber, England; 
L. A. Besancon, Louisiana; E. F. Sullivan, Texas; George 
"Work, New Yoi-k (last from Mexico); Major A. Elkins, 
Texas; Major Henry Charbonelle, France; John Bannister, 
Texas; David S. McDowell, Mississij)pi ; Jose Maria Ca- 
besut, Mexico; John E. Stokes, Ohio. 

The foregoing list comprises but a small portion of the 
whole number who had arrived in what is now Tuolumne 
County previous to the beginning of the year 1850; but 
they were representative men, the most of whom took a 
prominent part in the affairs of their time, and some of 
whom yet live to remember the exciting times and great 
achievements of the pioneer days.-^^ 

. Much has been written concerning the habits, mode of 
life and pursuits of the golden age of the State j* Volumes 
of most interesting matter could be compiled on these and 
kindred subjects, but the themes have so often been 
touched upon by writers that every one, at this later time, 
may be considered to have accurate ideas thereon. ' 

The designation " Golden Age" is not inapplicable to a 
time in which the search for the metal was attended with 
such abundant success. ' The records of the time prove the 
truth of the oft-repeated assertions of the " Old '49-ers,'' 
that gold could be gathered almost in any required quantity 
by the exercise of their primitive means of extraction. The 
pick, the pan and the shovel constituted the sole apparatus 
by which fortunes were made. / Finds, amounting to hun- 
dreds and even thousands of dollars, were too common to 
excite comment, and the labor of a single week often pro- 



HISTORY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 5* 

duced enough to carry the fortunate miner to his home in 
the East, there to live his remaining years in comfort. -*Not 
all, however, who were favored by the sight of the goddess 
Fortune, were minded to return. I Some there were from 
whom her face was averted, and after many years of painful 
seeking, they have found their rest, or, perchance, they 
still live among the hills that once echoed a livelier strain, 
and are awaiting that round of Time's cycle that shall lay 
their bones beside those of others gone before.^The old Cali- 
fornian is a being whose present life is but a retrospection 
of the early days, i He lives but as one awakened from an 
entrancing dream, to tell the glories of the days of '49; to 
describe the opportunities of accumulating wealth, when 
gold was so plenty that any man could sally out with his 
pan and shovel and make enough in a day to set at rest all 
thought of present need./ These things, and many more, 
have for years formed the great staple of conversation 
throughout the Western Slope, and the statements conned 
and repeated have taken on, like the tales of the other Argo- 
nauts, a tinge of exaggeration, however unrefined and un- 
poetical.i The oft repeated accounts of the phenomenal 
honesty of men in those days excite wonder and admiration 
in the later generation, who can not understand how a 
miscellaneous aggregation of men of all nationalities could 
have escaped contamination by a few to whom such noble 
traits were strangers.' The state of society which admitted 
of miners leaving in their cabins, with unlocked doors, large 
amount? of gold dust and other valuables could not have 
been of long continuance; hence the papers of an early date 
in 1850 teem with accounts of robberies, murders, and all 
descriptions of outrages, which have not suffered any cessa- 
tion thus far. ' It is, notwithstanding this fact, not proper 
to doubt the truth of the assertions of such highminded 
morality, but to ascribe it to the agency of fear. / 



10 HISTOBY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTT. 

• At this date the observing student of history is struck 
most forcibly with the apparent air of prodigality that per- 
vaded all classes and all doings of the time of which this 
section treats, and indeed of the subsequent years of rich 
strikes. He sees the spectacle of myriads of hardy, adven- 
turous men daring every danger and hardship in the frantic 
pursuit of gold, which, after attaining, they flung recklessly 
away! It needs no further exemplification of this than the 
further spectacle which he sees to-day of the remnants of 
those myriads dragging out their days, mostly in penury 
and want, many of whom, once possessors of unbounded 
wealth, which could have purchased every comfort which 
desire could dictate, but now living in squalor, and djdng, 
to be buried by the hands of charity! " With some, the fierce 
fight for wealth p>ast, and the prize ungained, ambition 
loses her sway, and the once energetic miner settles into 
the narrow groove of a hanger-on of a whisky saloon, to 
clean the spittoons for a drink, to aAvait the generous pa- 
tron at whose expense the liquid stimulant passes his ap- 
preciative lips. For such ends as these does he wear out 
his days and belie the promise of his earlier years. « But 
not all are thus. Some of that immortal band still carry 
hearts as brave as those that first dared the perils of the 
"Horn" to dig the sands of the Stanislaus and the Tuol- 
umne. 'The weight of years has not diminished their cour- 
age nor abated their energy, which still dii'ects them in their 
toil for the perhaps delusive goddess. • Ever in the van 
when new regions are explored and new fields give, up their 
treasure, the rigors of an Alaskan winter can not daunt 
them, nor the soft sweetness of a tropic climate lull them 
into forgetfulness of the spirit of the early Californian. 
• By the mountain top his camp-fire burns, and the crags 

of the Andes and the Cordilleras echo back the still 
forceful blows of his pick. ► Never until the kindly earth 



HISTORY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 11 

against which his own stirring blows have fallen shall in- 
close him in his windowless palace of rest, shall his efforts 
cease. 'His little cabin is perched far up the rugged side 
of the mountains that bound the State he helped to found. 
»The railroad train passes far beneath, bearing back those 
of hapj)ier fortune to the old home and friends in the East; 
but the old prospector's work is not — never will be finished 
until he lies down in his blankets for the last time. 'There 
is heroism in his work; there is heroism in every day's ex- 
istence of every old Californian whose spirit is not quenched 
nor his soul debased by misfortune's slights. • All honor 
to the men who advanced civilization's bounds over the 
Western shore! Kindness and honor to the living;* honor 
and peace to the dead! 



M Travel to the Southern mines was very constant during 
the year 1849, the immigrants coming by way of Sto_ckton, 
the road from which to Sqriora becoming a celebrated 
route. 'The garrulous recorder of those times informed his 
readers that the camp-fires on that highway were near 
enough together to show the traveler his way. He also 
says that the dealers in mining tools provisions and gen- 
eral merchandise, who, by the way, wisely combined the 
retailing of liquors with the above, also supplied the hun- 
gry miners with pork and beans at the moderate rate of 
one dollar per plate ! A similar charge was also made for 
house-room for sleeping, the applicant finding his own 
bedding. It is mentioned that board was at the rate of 
three dollars per day. The same veracious chronicler says 
that gold-dust, serving as a medium of exchange, was often 



12 HISTOKY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 

guessed at as to its value. Gold scales, he explains, were 
unknown at that date, and such an amount of gold as could 
be held between the thumb and finger was called a dollar's 
worth, while a teasgoonful passed for an ouncej a wine- 
glassful was one hundred dollars, and a tumblerful was 
called a thousand dollars. / Much gold was dropped in 
handling, and to obviate this loss, blankets were stretched 
upon the counters and gambling tables, which received the 
falling particles. 

^ All unite to pronounce the miners of that day men of the 
most reckless prodigality;* but, as might be expected where 
such habits prevailed, the virtue of charity was much prac- 
ticed. 'Towards the sick or destitute, the miners, gamblers, 
traders and all, were most ready in their demonstrations of 
good will. 'Nor did these demonstrations take the sole 
form of kind words and speeches? these were left to the 
utterance of a later generation, whose purse-strings do not 
so readily loosen to the cry of misfortune. • The readiness 
of the gamblers to respond in cases of distress has been 
supposed to have been a bond between them and the honest 
class, which led to their being tolerated as they were. 
Charity to the unfortunate took the other hazardous, though 
hardly less praiseworthy, form of reliance upon the word 
and honor of strangers, so that, as is well known, an entire 
stranger could buy on credit, without introd action or refer- 
ence, hundreds of dollars' worth of the necessaries of life, 
and this without exciting remark. 'Again, if a stranger be- 
came sick, it was not uncommon that the trader of the 
nearest camp assumed charge of the case, paid the bills, 
medical fees, etc., and in case of death, buried the unfor- 
tunate. ' Such cases are attested to, and are, beyond doubt, 
true. -Such reports go far to remove any unpleasant reflec- 
tions which the reported avarice may occasion. 
/ Early in the year 1849, two events occurred of which the 



HISTORY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 13 

narration will throw much light upon the primitive ways of 
administeriug what was thought to be justice. These 
events were two trials, for theft and murder, respectively. 

^As is well known, neither wrtten law, properly constituted 
officers, nor courts of law, existed. ♦ In lieu of the jDresent 
machinery of the law, an officer, called Ly the Mexi.can 
term Alcalde, was selected from the inhabitants of a dis- 
trict, and to him were delegated the necessary powers for 
preserving the peace, settling disputes and trying offenders. 

• The mode of choosing an Alcalde was as unsystematic as 
the powers that he assumed, f 'Instances are on record of an 
Alcalde's assumption of his position without the form of a 
vote, or even a request from the surrounding inhabitants, 
as did R . S. H am, the first Alcalde of Sonora, who was 
recognized in that capacity until a case which demanded 
more talent than he was supposed to possess, when he was 
summarily deposed and James Frazier, a store-keej)er on 
Sonorita Gulch, was raised to the dignity, t 
' The circumstances of the case of theft, to which allusion 
has been made, were as follows: 'Shortly after the dig- 
gings along Sonora Creek had been first discovered, Charles 
Bassett, a sailor, from the P. S. S. Oregon, had settled 
there with a number of others. « The cook of the stea,mer, 
one of the party, had been accused of robbing an American, 
whose cabin was at the present location of the Washington 
street bridge. / This he denied, but was taken before Al- 
calde Ham, who ordered him into confinement until the 
morrow, when he would doubtless hang him. Bassett, 
however, anxious to save a shipmate, collected the neighbor- 
ing miners and elected Frazier to the now important post 
of AlcaMe, ignoring Ham, who is described as a rough, 
illiterate man, while the new officer was regarded as the 
most influential and cultivated person in the vicinity.'' The 
trial came off the next day, the first act of Alcalde Fra- 



14 HISTORY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 

zier being to name the new place Sonora Camp, or in the 
uncouth habit of the Americans, "Sonorian Camp.V The 
trial did not plainly show the guilt of the prisoner, so that 
the sentence was not death, which would doubtless have 
been inflicted if the accusation had been proved, but as 
there was a serious doubt, the verdict was guilty, with a 
recommendation to mercy. /Frazier accordingly sentenced 
the man to be flogged, but it is thought that this sentence 
was never executed. ^' 

t The circumstances of the murder case alluded to were 
these: a quarrel had arisen between one Atkins, an Ameri- 
can gambler, and some Irishmen, at Big Bar, on Sullivan's 
Creek. Atkins, being roughly used, retired to his cabin, 
and, loading his rifle, fired at and killed a man whose name 
has been given as Bojal or Boydau, and who had been ac- 
tively engaged in freeing Atkins from the assaults of the 
others./ Then was seen the spectacle of a mob, clamoring 
for condign punishment upon the guilty man — a spectacle 
that has been witnessed many times since in Tuolumne, 
with all the added horrors of executions unauthorized and 
undeserved. / In this case, however, the party of order tri- 
umphed. lAtkins was taken away under guard and subjected 
to trial before Alcalde Frazier, when a verdict and sentence 
in the case were arrived at, "That Mr. Atkins be found 
guilty of murder and that he be fined five hundred dollars, 
and be ordered to leave the settlement, forthwith, under 
pain of death." • 

• This verdict was not received with favor by the friends 
of the murdered man, one of whom armed himself with 
the fixed purpose ot killing the Alcalde, for which luxury 
he offered to forfeit five hundred dollars also. Atkins left 
as commanded, and went north and became the Sheriff of 
Siskiyou some years later .^ Thus ended the first murder 
trial in Tuolumne county — a trial that affords a fair exam- 



HISTOKY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 15 

pie of the administration of so-called justice by lynch 
law.** 

/ On June 3, 1849, a proclamation was issued by General 
Riley, the Military Grovernor of California, ordering a gen- 
eral election, the first ever held by Americans on the West- 
ern slope. The following is a copy of the original tally- 
list made on the occasion of the election : 

/* At an election held at the office of the Alcalde of the 
Sonora Camp, in the San Joaquin District, on Wednesday, 
the 1st day of August, 1849, in accordance with the pro- 
clamation of B. Kiley, Brevet-Brigadier General, U. S. A,, 
and Governor of Calijornia, dated 3d day of June, 1849, 
for the purpose of choosing delegates to a General Conven- 
tion, and for filling the offices of one Judge of the Supe- 
rior Court, for the District of Sonora, Sacramento and San 
Joaquin, one Prefect, two sub-Prefects, and one 1st Alcalde 
for Judge of the First Instance, for the District of San 
Joaquin, the following persons voted :^ 
/ William Walker, J. A. Talbot, Thomas Smith, Edward 
P. Kennedy, Thomas Williams, Moses B. Carson, Henry J. 
Wilson, Nathaniel McCullock, Charles C. Sweet, Daniel 
Okeson, Francisco Duarte, Juan Sanchez, John Riley, 
Manuel Valencia, Domingo Curiega, Edward Blair, R. B. 
Wilbur, George Weeks, W. Warren, I. M, R. Clements, J. 
R. Barton, Vicente Duarte, Dorotea Sabileto, Wm. Ford, 
Pio Moreno, Nathaniel Delano, Orson Murray, William 
Bowers, W. R. Banks, Wm. Long', James M. Key, Benja- 
min F. Ross, John D. Winters, H. G. Brown, William 
Howard, John Mason, James R. Lewis, Richard H. Clarke, 
H. W. Theall, D. A. Enyart, Francisco Pavia, Antonio 
Palma y Mesa, Juan Machado, Jesus Jeda, E. R. Clay, 
James Demican, John Finch, G. C Armstrong, Casimir 
Labetoure, John Campbell, Robert Keating, James Dove, 
Thomas Hudson, Charles Mclntyre, Henry Ryan, Fred. 



16 HISTORY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTT. 

Bohringer, Elanali Galasha, Eobt. Hill, Jno. Phillips, AIbx. 
M. Coe, J. M. Bradshaw, Pat. Halpin, William Belt, Will- 
iam K. Smith, H, Fairchild, K. G. Ackley, Alba Maurison, 
S. Haley, Louis Pollock, George Kerr, A. W. Luckett, 
James M. Danean, James B. Lyons, Joshua Holden, John 
E. Stothers, Ignacio Bayez, David Carson, William Wil- 
son, John Campbell, Jr., Rosario Marin, Louis Crane, 
Isaac Thomas, M. G. Patterson, Exaltacion Canscio^ Louis 
Van Reed, Antonio Labori, Alonzo Green, Eli Dobson, 
John Hart, James Cahn, William Callahan, Jens Schon, H. 
C. Nesbitt, Charles Van Winkle, John Satterlee, Andrew 
Lublette, W. Yaker, James Fraser.i James Eraser, Charles 
C. Sweet, Daniel Okeson, Inspectors. Total vote 98." 

That Mr, James Eraser, or Frazier, as the name is indif- 
ferently spelled, was a popular officer is shown by the fact 
that the residents of Sonoran Camp held a meeting to ex- 
press their sentiments of respect and gratitude, at which 
complimentary resolutions were passed, speeches were 
made and the following document signed by thirty-nine of 
the prominent men: 

SoNOEANiAN Camp, 2d August, 1849. 

To Mr. James Eraser : If there had been a vacancy in the 
office of local Alcalde for this camp, and we had conse- 
quently voted for a person to fill that office, we would have 
voted yesterday for you in preference to any other candi- 
date. 

We remain, j^our obedient servants, 

(Here follow the signatures.) 



Prospecting was now rife, and new placers were almost 
daily discovered. The diggings at Yankee Hill were found, 
and on the 17th of May the place was given the above name 



HISTOBY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 17 

by Thomas Hill, a discharged drummer of Stevenson's regi- 
ment, who formed one of a party of nineteen jDrospectors 
who came from Mokelumne Hill, and who won the toss 
which conferred the honor of naming the locality. -The 
names of " Frenchy," Rochette, (later of Lee and Mar- 
shall's Circus), Thomas Hill, P. Cutrell and L. G. Alexan- 
der, only, are preserved of all the company. * It seems 
that this company, or ii part of it, left these new discoveries 
to go to still newer diggings at Yorktown, of which extrava- 
gant reports were in circulation.' At an informal election 
at the latter place, P. Cutrejl was elected Alcalde, and Ro- 
chette Sheriff. The latter did not hold his office long, 
preferring to follow mining as an occupation. Accordingly, 
L. G-. Alexander was selected to succeed him. Diggings 
were discovered on Sullivan's creek which proved remuner- 
ative.! The fielder's name is given as Savage, but there is 
at present no means of identifying him with certainty. In 
the month of June Jacksonville was founded, Colonel Jack- 
sen having discovered gold-bearing gravel at the junction 
of Wood's creek and the Tuolumne river. These diggings 
are said to have sustained for many years their reputation 
of moderate richness, other more pretentious camps having 
died in the interim. 

The delegates to the convention which framed the consti- 
tution met on September 1st, 1849. Those chosen from this 
district were four in number, viz: Colonel B. F. Moore, 
of Texas, J. M. Jones, a celebrated lawyer of New Or- 
leans, O. M. "Wozencraft and B. S. Lippincott. James 
- Fraser, who has been frequently mentioned in these pages 
as the first regular Alcalde, gave place to Hiram S. Theall, 
who became -prominently identified with the affairs of So- 
nora, as a judicial officer, as military commander of a local 
body of militia and as a business man. 'Subsequently, Chas. 
F. Dodge, another prominent business man of Sonora, was 



18 HISTORT OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 

chosen to the office, in which position he remained until 
the legislative enactment organizing the town of Sonpra 
went into effects Previously a town organization had ex- 
isted, for it is on record that on the 7th of November, 1849, 
the citizens of Sonora met and organized a town govern- 
ment, mainly with the view of providing a hospital for the 
sick, for the scurvy had raged^during the preceding winter 
from the unsuitable diet, consisting almost entirely of 
salted provisions. The mortality was great, especially 
among the Mexican population; and it was with an idea 
of abating such sufiferings that the hospital was built 
and maintained throughout the ensuing^ rainy season, 
partially by the contributions of the benevolent and partly 
by the sale of town lots. A steward was hired at a daily 
pay of eight dollars, lime juice was bought for five dollars 
per bottle, potatoes at one dollar to one dollar and a half 
per pound, and other supplies at a corresponding rate. 
These prices, it must be observed, were not considered 
high at that time. ■* 

The first Town Council of Sonora consisted of C. F. 
Dodge, Joshua Holden, Peter Mehen, C. Labetoure, E. 
Liinoberg, J. B. Litton, William Perkins and another whose 
name cannot be ascertained. One of their acts was to 
order a survey of the town into lots. ' This was done by 
Cooper and Galledge, whese map became the official chart. 
On the arrival of the news from San Jose, the seat of the 
State government, that Sonora was to be the county seat, 
the Council passed a resolution that all vacant lots should 
be regarded as the property of the town and that the 
money derived from their sale should be applied to paying 
for the survey and to the hospital expenses. Apropos of 
the latter subject it may be appropriate to reproduce cer- 
tain bills of goods furnished to that institution, as a,t this 
day they have a historical interest never before possessed: 



HISTQRY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 19 

Town of Sonera to Eolden and Greene, Dr. 

For 38 yards wide matting, $2.50 per yard $ 95 00 

For 16 yards narrow matting, $1.50 per yard 24 00 

For tacks and labor, in putting down matting 20 00 

For 15 lbs. nails, from Theall & Perkins 30 00 

For 2 lbs. sperm candles, from Theall & Perkins 12 00 

For William "Williams, for building 300 00 

For berths 50 00 

For nails 8 00 

For clearing of lot for building 15 00 

Total $554 GO 

Received Payment. Geeen & Holden. 

Dickinson, Dr. to Elkins. 

January 15, 2 lbs. bacon, $3; 1 lb. chalk, $1 50 $ 4 50 

18, 6 lbs. bacon f 100; flour $2 12 00 

18, 2 lbs. coflfee, $2, cash, $3 5 00 

February 9, 1 bottle brandy . 4 00 

■' 9, 6 lbs. bacon 7 50 

" 6, 4 lbs. rice 3 00 

8, 11 lbs. flour 8 25 

Paid cash to Bell, for medicine 7 00 

Total , $51 25 

Eeceived Payment, A. Elkins. 

SoNOKA, February 13, 1850. 

Town of Sonora to Green and Holden, Dr. 

To one bottle lime juice, by Dr. Shepherd $ 5 00 

To bread 1 00 

To one pair blankets 12 00 

To 66 feet of plank, at 50c 33 00 

Tofal $51 00 

Gbeen & Holden. 

' It required the utmost exertions to keep the hospital 
open, the most striking instances of liberality being shown 



20 HISTORY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 

iu its aid. ^ Messrs. C. S. Dodge & Co., who kept a meat 
shop, the first in Sonora, were prominent, and it is said 
that a very large bill for meat furnished by them was left 
unpaid by the town of Sonora.' The same Charles F. 
Dodge, when Alcalde, 'paid, from his own private funds, the 
deficiency in burial chai-ges, amounting to very considera- 
ble sums. 

On the morning of Nov. 14, 1849, the first serious fire 
broke out in a gambling tent situated where the Sbaw's 
Flat road crosses Wood's Creek. Very soon it had extended 
the whole length of town, causing a loss variously esti- 
mated at from thirty to- forty thousand dollars, which is not 
large, considering that the population of the town was not' 
less than five thousand. 

It was on the occasion of this fire that Charles Bassett 
organized a guard of four ex-soldiers of Stevenson's regi- 
ment, who were camping in the gulch then called by his 
name, but which now is Sonora Creek. Th'ese men being 
in uniform and armed with their muskets, were stationed 
on the outskirts of the fire, taking charge of whatever prop- 
erty was saved, and not sufltering anything to be removed 
from their supervision. By this means thefts were pre- 
vented. Alcalde Frazier gave his sanction to Bassett's 
disposition of these affairs, so that Bassett may be said to 
have held the first military command in this place. 
y Dr. Strotber opened, in the Fall of 1849, the first drug 
store in Sonora. It was situated in the vicinity of Bassett's 
camp, or near the present location of the City Hotel. Just 
below his place were a few reviadas (brush houses), which 
together were called " Scott-town," from the name of the 
most prominent of the occupants, a gambler "of gentle- 
manly deportment." 

Thus early in her history, Sonora Lad arrived at the maxi- 
mum of lier importance and population, she not having less 



HISTORY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 21 

than 5000 at this date — a number she has never exceeded. 

#As is the custom in all mining camps, the favorite day 
for trade and barter was Sunday; /when her streets were 
thronged with miners fi*om the suri'ounding claims, in town 
for their mail and for the purpose of purchasing supplies, 
and to seek the excitement of the gaming table. S'.ill in 
the memories of present inhabitants are recollections of 
the streets so densely thronged that locomotion was im- 
peded ; stores filled to overflowing with men seeking to 
spend their accumulations of the week; on such days the 
number of j)eople in town could not have been less than 
ten thousand /And these vast crowds consisted almost 
wholl^^of nien;-»-men in the prime of life and of uncommon 
niental and phvsical vigor, as if they had been the picked 
men of their respective distant communities.-/ And they 
were so in some sense, possessing the best qualities of dar- 
ing, strength and determination that have left their impress 
that shall exist through all time,^ 

.- /Eeligious matters, as is usually the case with all new set- 
tlements, and more especially mining towns, had not at 
first received much attentive consideration; other than those 
of money, had not disturbed the current of existence in any 
appreciable degree, until at a much later period. A slight 
sprinkling only, of Grod fearing men, began in a quiet way 
to make their influence felt as ear]y as the fall of '49, when 
Padre Arnault settled in Sonora. - This gentleman came 
from Mexico, and was the reported possessor of great 
wealth, of which he gave freely to endow the first Roman 
Catholic organization, which was formed under his aus- 

- pieces, giving the ground on which a church was built to 
succeed the small adobe building which was first erected for 
celebrating the Catholic service, and which was completed 
in the summer of 1850. The efi'orts of the projectors of 
this concern were said to have had a good effect upon the 



22 



HISTORY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 



remainder of society. » At first scoffing and jeering at the 
proposed new order of things was heard, but insensibly a 
change was affected which has continued beneficially down 
to the present time, when, despite the complaining of 
clergymen and other professional religionists who never 
see aught but the dark side of things, Sonora, and Tuol- 
umne in general, contains as moral, decent and upright a 
community as grace any portion of God's footstool. / 



Discoveries at Columbia. 

In March, 1850, the diggings at Columbia were found. 
This location, which has ever since been celebrated for the 
remarkable extent and richness of its gold deposits, is said 
by some to have been first discovered by a party of Mexi- 
cans from Santiago Hill, about a mile northwest of the 
new discovery. According to this account, these men 
were seen b}' a party of Americans, among whom were Dr. 
Thaddeus Hildreth, George, his brother, John Walker, 
William Jones and Alexander Carson. These, being in- 
formed that the place was rich, stayed to try their luck, 
and finding the result beyond expectations, thej' returned 
home for supplies and afterwards located permanently at 
the new discovery. ' Another account, being a slight mod- 
ification of this, is to be found in Heckendorn and Wil- 
son's Business Directory, This ascribes the discovery to 
the same party having encamped under an oak tree that 
stood at what is now Main street, near the bridge. Kain 
falling during the night, they were obliged to remain some 
time in the morning to dry their blankets, and while thus 
detained Walker prospected the ground in a small gulch 
leading from Kennebeck Hill, so named at a later day. 
His prospect being encouraging, the party decided to re- 



HISTORY OF TDOLUMNE COUNTY. 23 

main for the day, which they occupied in examining the im- 
mediate neighborhood ; their work for the day giving a re- 
sult of one ounce of gold. They then decided to locate 
at this point; but water being scarce, they were obliged to 
carry their dirt in sacks to it, and wash in rockers. It is 
said that even by this laborious process, they were able to 
make six or eight ounces per day to the man. 

Such are the two stories in reference to this very im- 
portant discovery. Which one is true it' is impossible at 
this time to say, nor does it matter much, the essential 
point being the time of the discover}', which both ac- 
counts place in March, 1850. The first account bears the 
most likely appearance of truth, as there is a well-known 
tendency on the part of mankind in general, to ascribe to 
trivial causes the most important and far-reacbing eifects; 
and this story of the wet blankets, and the consequent 
detention, is on a par with othera that have been invented 
to account for other similar discoveries. 

Whether or not the Mexicans were already on the ground 
when the Hildreth party arrived, there were, at all events, 
men of that nationality at work alongside of the Ameri- 
cans when the latter commenced systematic work. Their 
location is stated to have been four hundred feet above 
where a wooden suspension bridge was constructed about 
1860. 'The proximity of the hated foreigners had the 
usual effect of causing the Mexicans to remove them- 
selves from their unwelcome neighbors, to seek other 
fields. It is related that the new-comers took out fifteen 
pounds of gold dust daily for the first three days, the 
most of which was from ground that the Mexicans had 
once worked. The accounts of their success in the com- 
mencement disagree somewhat, but there is no occasion 
to doubt that it was immense, since the "rush" that im- 
mediately set in for "Hildreth's Diggings," the name by 



24 HISTORY or TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 

which the placers were first known, was almost unprece- 
dented at that day. The immigration poured in from 
Sonora, Jamestown, Wood's Crossing, Jacksonville and 
other mining camps, as well as from Calaveras and 
Mokelumne Hill, all centering at Columbia. Wonderful 
stories were circulated, which spread into the remotest 
mining regions, causing a new impetus to be given ta 
prospecting, with the result of abundant new discoveries. 
The trails were now crowded wil h men, in numbers before 
unknown, all traveling to the great centers of attraction, 
with their blankets on their backs, aael if any diverged 
into side gulches or streams, they encountered the smoke 
of the pioneer or heard the rattle of the worker; or, below 
on the stream, they were surprised to behold the water 
muddied from the operations of some one who was before 
them, in a place where they thought no white man's foot 
had ever trod. 

First of all who came io ('olumbii stands the name of 
Captain Avent. This gentleman bad the good fortune to 
take out two and a half pounds of gold in his first day's 
work, and the second day secured to him one and a half 
pounds more. After this Lis average was twelve or fif- 
teen ounces daily, until the failure of the water iu July. 

In the cdurse of a few days, some thirty or forty remadas 
and cloth tents were erected in the immediate vicinity of 
the spot where the first strike was made, and lying along 
the south side of the creek. Among these occupants were 
Rochette, previously mentioned as having been at Yankee 
Hill, and then at Yorktown; James Leil'ord, afterwards a 
resident of Sonora, and for many years Justice of the 
Peace; Major Farnsworth; Bonillos, a Peruvian butcher. 
Charles Bassett came from Sonora and located on the 
north side of the creek, building there corrals for cow^ 
and sheep. He also opened a store, combining with it a 



HISTORY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 25 

restaurant, butcher shop and dairy. ~ A part of his multi- 
farious business was to peddle ciilk 'through the camp, it 
meeting a ready sale at one dollar per whisky bottle full. 
At such a price, he doubtless could afford to give the un- 
watered article. 

By the middle of April following the discovery, not less 
than six thousand persons had located in the vicinity of 
Kennebec Hill — not all of whom were engaged in mining, 
but many in the dependent callings, as providers for 
those so engaged. A vast influx of gamblers had also ar- 
rived, and in a short time the number of faro banks in 
operation was reckoned at one hundred and forty-thi'ee, 
with capitals aggregating from one million to one and a 
half million of dollars! G-ambling was the only_amuse- 
ment of the day, and was patronized accordingly./ It was 
common to see sums reaching into- the thousands staked 
on the turn of a card. I As might be expected, with this 
sudden and great accession of population, with its great 
attendant twin evils of gambling and prostitution, much 
lawlessness was rife, and a state of society existed which 
it was found necessary in some way to mitigate. Accord- 
ingly, as tiie most reasonable means of doing so, a public 
election was called for April 21)th, or thereabouts, result- 
ing in the election of Major Sullivan, of Sonora, as 
Alcalde, and one Gresby as Constable, in the same in- 
formal way as the previous Alcaldes of Sonora had been 
chosen — without governmental authority, and solely to 
meet an immediate exigency. 

The first case to come before Alcalde Sullivan was' that 
of a Mexican, Juan Santa Anna, who was arrested on 
the complaint of William Smith, who charged the former 
with the theft of a pair of leggings. The testimony 
sufficed to convict, the defendant, who was fined three 
ounces for stealing, while Smith was mulcted one ounce 
for having complained of him ! 



26 HISTORY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTT. 

George Hildreth brought suit for the recovery of a pick 
which had been stolen from him, and which was found 
in the store of a Frenchman. The Court's decision was 
that the store -keeper pay one ounce fine and three ounces 
costs. 

The next case was for the recovei'y of a mule.t The 
property was proved bej^ond dispute, and the accused 
party ordered to restore the animal to its owner, and to 
■pay a fine of one ounce, and three ounces costs. The ac- 
cused not having the wherewith, the Court decreed that 
the accuser, who was known to be in good circumstances, 
should pay the fine and costs, as the Court could not be 
expected to sit without remuneration. 

Much has been written to the detriment of Major Sul- 
livan's character — as that he had a regularly organized 
system of bullying and swindling all those with whom he 
had dealings — but as it canuot be ascertained that there 
was any foundation for these charges except private 
malice, il would be manifestly unjust to give place to what 
has been said. The irregularities in the cases cited above 
only show an amount of eccentricity which can be ex- 
cused on the consideration of the prevailing habits and 
manners. 

The honor of bestowing upon the new camj) its present 
name, Columbia, is due to Majors Farnsworth and Sulli- 
van and Mr. D. G. Alexander, who formally named the 
place on the 29th of April. The first tent put up on the 
present site of the town was occupied as a drinking and 
gambling saloon. 

On the 1st of June the Foreign Miners' Tax of twenty 
dollars per month, went into effect, and its results upon 
the growth and prosperity surpassed even the most un- 
favorable predictions. Multitudes of foreigners — who, by 
the way, formed the majority of the settlers at Columbia — 



HISTORY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 27 

left immediately, and the tax, coupled with the scarcity of 
water for mining purposes, acted to almost extinguish the 
new place. Rapid as had been her rise, her decadence 
was more sudden. The only water in the camp was 
two "tom-heads," running from Matelot, or Sailor Gulch, 
so that few of the miners could prosecute their labors, 
and the yield of gold was very much curtailed. Gambling 
and saloon-keeping still held their own, and traveling 
musicians, a newly-found source of amusement, prospered 
beyond belief. 

In the meantime, other camps, in various parts of the 
district, had been settled. In the latter part of April, Mr. 
Hatch, ^ with several others, discovered Gold Springs, in 
the sands of which gold was found. Charles M. Ead- 
cliffe was the first trader at the camp which sprang up, and 
he was the sponsor of the place, naming it Gold Spring, it 
having since acquired another letter. Eadclifife, who was 
a very prominent man in the early days, at that time was a 
partner with Major Farnsworth in merchandising, they 
having stores at Gold Spring, Pine Log and at Columbia. 
Mrs. Maley was the first white woman to settle at Gold 
Spring, and Mrs. Williams, on the 17th of July, 1852, 
gave birth to the first child born there. The first butcher 
was Mr. Wilson, who also "dealt with the inhabitants of 
Columbia., Pine Log and other camps in the neighborhood. 
* In the same month that witnessed the finding of Colum- 
bia, Springfield also took its rise. Its history is interest- 
ing, as evincing the energy and business talent that a 
woman displayed. 'In the latter part of March, Donna 
Josefa Valmaseda arrived from San Francisco. -Previously 
she had been an influential resident of Guaymas, and in 
the war against the United States she had been a strong 
partisan of the latter country, giving aid and countenance 
to her country's enemies. -Acting upon information fur- 



28 HISTORY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 

nished by her, the town of Guaymaa was taken by the 
United States ships "Cyane" and "Warren." This course 
brought down ujDon her the vengeance of the Mexican 
Government, and she was corapelled to fly to the pro- 
tection of the American men-of-war, tibandoning her prop- 
erty, which, according to usage, was confiscated. After 
the breaking out of the mining excitement she came to 
the mines, where she collected a number of her country- 
men, whom she hired to mine at the place now known as 
Springfield— so called because of the remarkable spring 
Avhich breaks out of the limestone at this place, 
♦ In a like manner. Donna Martinez settled at the camp 
which bore her name. Her location was in the midst of 
very rich deposits, and the camj:) increased rapidly, soon 
containing over a thousand miners. Its downfall soon 
commenced, however, owing, in great part, to the Foreign 
Miners' Tax. This place was settled in May or June, 1850. 



Effect of the Miners' Tax. 

tThe Foreign Miners' Tax of twenty dollars per month 
went into operation on the 1st of June, 1850, by formal 
act of the Legislature. * Its principal result was the almost 
immediate depopulation of certain camps, and the great 
injury of all. «Sonora and Columbia suffered enormous 
losses, estimated, in the case of the former town, at four- 
fifths of the entire poj)ulation; while the latter, whose 
growth had been so rapid, was reduced, through the Tax 
Iiaw and the scarcity of water, to a community of only 
nine or ten persons. • So it is credibly told. I'Of the se- 
ceding miners, some went to their homes in foreign lands, 
while others sought diggings in secluded places, where the 



HISTORY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 29 

obnoxious law would probably not be enforced. Others 
there were who resisted the collection of the tax by the 
officers appointed to collect it. ^The impression got about 
in Co lumbi a that the foreigners meditated forcible re- 
prisals on the Americans of that camp, resulting in a stam- 
pede from that town to Souora of the whole American 
population; with the exception of Charles Bassett and a few 
others. A rumor having reached Souora that Bassett was 
murdered, a band of armed men marched upon Columbia, 
beaded by "Frenchy" Rochette, carrying the American 
flag. ' This statement is given upon the authority of Cap- 
tain Stoddart, wlio further adds that the only destruction 
effected by this warlike band was npon the liquors and 
eatablos of the said Bassett, who was nearly eaten out of 
house and home by his zealous friends. 

Walter Murray, who subsequently became edilior of the 
Sonora ZTt^rrt/^/, related graphically his, impressions of the 
scenes consequent upon the first attempt to enforce the 
tax, and as a vivid picture of affairs' at that time, it may 
be well to give it place in this work. #He says: 

"It was a hot summer's day in June, when a man on 
horseback came tearing into the little encamjimeut at Mor- 
mon Gulch, at full speed, evidently' big with exciting in- 
telligence. j»The miners, who happened to be scattered in 
groups, talking over the events of the past week, eagerly 
rushed forward and gathered around the messenger, from 
whose broken exclamations they at length learned that 
there was something very like \var approaching, tit ap- 
peared that the Cullector appointed by the State Govern- 
ment to receive the Foreign Miners' Tax had arrived at the 
county seat and issued his notice, calling upon all forei_gn- 
ers to come forward and pay their first month's assessment 
of twenty dollars. «The attempt to collect this exorbitant 
impost put the immense foreign pojoulation, with whom the 



30 HISTOEY OF TUOLDMNK OOUNIT. 

country was literally overrun, into a state of intense fer- 
ment. / Meetings had been held upon the subject, inflam- 
matory speeches had been made by Spanish and French 
orators, and at length it appeared that some great demon- 
stration had been made against the odious tax. (The mes- 
senger averred that the county seat was in the hands of the 
excited foreign mob, numbering two or three thousand, all 
armed; that the safety of the place was menaced, and that 
the American citizens were fleeing from it. ' Furthermore, 
that the principal citizens had sent couriers to the sur- 
rounding camps asking for assistance. 

rThere had previously been so many rumors afloat of 
the expected insurrection of the Spanish- American popu- 
lation against the 'proprietors' of the country, and the 
'boys' had in this way been kept in such a continual state 
of excitement, that the arrival of this intelligence operated 
at once like dropping a spark of fire in a tinder-box. ' Mes- 
sengers were immediately dispatched hither and thither, 
calling upon the mincers to assemble within an hour, at a 
given spot, on the way to the county seat, and the 'Gulch' 
was in a moment alive with busy, bustling men, getting out 
their rjfles and pistols and jn'opariug for the expected con- 
flict. « 

r "Being unarmed, and therefore forming no part of the 
expedition, I started, with a few others, ahead of the main 
body, which consisted of about one hundred and fifty men; 
but all were so eager to get on, that it was with the utmost 
difficulty we could keep the smallest distance in advance. 

I AVe met several persons on the way with later intelligence 
from the seat of war, but their accounts were all contra- 
dictory, some saying that the excitement was all over; 
others, that there was immediate need of our services. 

1 However, we pressed on, determined not to stop short of 
the place for which we set out. On arriving at a camp of 



HISTORY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 31 

Mexicans, one mile short of our destination, we were sur- 
prised to see its motley inhabitants very quietly seated in 
front of their brush hovels, playing monte and other 
games, as if nothing unusual had transpired. ' 'They, too, 
were none the less surprised to see the column of armed 
men advancing on them in close order — especially as they 
heard the general yell that was joined in by the American 
party as they advanced toward Sonora. 'i Reassured by this 
apparent calm, I hurried on to the town, reaching it five 
or ten minutes in advance of the party. I All aj)peared quiet 
and peaceful as ever. * * * * j waited to see the 
little procession enter town, i Soonit came along, headed 
by fife and drum — which, by this time, had been scared 
up — and, first and foremost, by the glorious stars and 
stripes, borne aloft and waved very gracefully to and fro 
by an inhabitant of the big city. » Thus, with music sound- 
ing and banners waving, the little band marched through 
the whole length of town, vociferously cheered all the way 
by the American inhabitants, who turned out en masse to 
see them, f On arriving at the other end of town, the word, 
'Forward, by file left; march,' was given, when the fore- 
most man found himself headed off by a well-stocked bar, 
whereat each one, as he arrived, was 'liquored up.'.' They 
were then countermarched through town again, the same 
hospitality being extended at several places on the route, 
and were at length halted in front of the principal hotel 
where the Collector of Foreign Miners' Taxes made them a 
speech. ^ After speaking for about ten minutes, he informed 
them they might rest that night and the morrow 'to busi- 
ness.' 'Accordingly, all was soon bustle and scuriy at the 
big hotel; «waiters went hurrying to and fro, and ail was 
busy preparation for a general meal. After an hour or so, 
which seemed an age to the hungry miners, the long tables 
were loaded down with eatables, and the word given to 



32 HISTORY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 

fall to; and fall to they did, in a manner only to be par- 
alleled in California and in the mines. 

/"After supper, the arms were all stored away in a build- 
ing temporarily devoted to the purpose of a guard-house. 
A watch was set during the night, with regular reliefs; 
patrols were organized, and the city speedily assumed the 
appearance of being under martial law. 
^ "Many and various were the reports circulated on that 
eventful night. According to some, the town was to be 
attacked and set fire to at different points. > Kumors of 
assassination and massacre were fearfully rife;j but at length 
morning dawned, and the country was discovered to be 
safe. (Breakfast was spread out for us at the same hospita- 
ble board, and then all were assembled on the main street, 
and divided into companies, headed each by its own cap- 
tain and lieutenant. I'A column of some three hundred 
armed men, in all, was thus formed, which, headed by the 
Collector and Sheriff of the county, commenced its march 
through the disaffected camps. « 

*"Alas, as we marched along, what a scene of confusion 
and terror marked our way! iMexicans, Chilenos, et id genus 
omne — men, women and children — were all packed up and 
moving, bag and baggage. ^Tents were being pulled down, 
houses and hovels gutted of their contents; mules, horses 
and hiwros were being hastily packed, while crowds upon 
crowds were already in full retreat. xWhat could have 
been the object of our assembly, except as a demonstration 
of power and determination, I know not; but if intended 
as an engine of terror, it certainly had its desired effect, for 
it could be seen painted upon every countenance and im- 
pelling every movement of the affrighted population. How- 
ever, on we marched, through this dire confusion, peace- 
fully pursuing our way, until we reached what was deemed 
to be the headquarters of malcontent— a camp containing 



HISTORY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 3S 

some thousanJ Spanish Americans — about four miles from 
the county seat. ^^Here we halted for the last time (liquored 
up, of course, for it was the month of June, and the roads 
were dry and dusty), and, after being paraded through the 
main street, and held for an hour or more in readiness, 
awaiting- the report of certain officials dispatched to inquire 
into the truth of a ru^or that a foreign flag had been 
hoisted somewhere in the vicinity, were finally discharged. 
Every man then fired his rifle in the air, reloaded his piece, 
and started homeward, each on his own particular way. #1, 
too, started for the ' Gulch,' and until I reached there 
never lost sight of the train of fugitives scattered along the 
roads in every direction. < Some were going north, some 
south. ^ The great body were probably bound for home; 
some by way of the sea, others by way of Los Angeles and 
the Great Desert. ('Others, again, were scattering them- 
selves over the country, to commence the career of blood- 
shed and cold-blooded atrocity which for months afterward 
stained the pages of Califjornia history . *Even those who 
were bound for home often left behind them, along the 
way, bloody traces of their deep-set hatred to Americans, 
or, perhaps, their natural thirst for massacre and pillage. 7 
^ Even at this late day, it is not difficult to form accurate 
conclusions as to the causes and effects of the movements 
above portrayed, i Undoubtedly, at that time much pardon- 
able excitement was occasioned, much bad feeling was en- 
gendered, and many causes for hostility and strife were 
given on either side, j The weight of evidence does not ex- 
onerate the Americans in any particular from the charge of 
violent and premeditated wrong. « On the other hand, the 
ignorant, priest-ridden foreign classes betrayed their nat- 
urally revengeful dispositions, in many instances commit - 
ting robbery and murder on innocent individuals in revenge 
for the acts of a whole community or State. When, how- 



34: HISTORY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 

ever, the evil effects of the tax were clearly seen, even the 
most pronounced of its former advocates became dubious 
about the wisdom of the measure; and those who only tol- 
erated it as a measure of political wisdom, finding it the 
precursor of serious evils, withdrew their tacit support. 
« Efforts were finally made for a repeal of the obnoxious law; 
but sentiment being divided, no great headway was made, 
until, the foreigners of the several mining counties uniting, 
the obnoxious measure was repealed. ^Previous to this, 
however, public sentiment suffered such a change in their 
behalf that a fund for testing the legality of the Act was 
created in Sonora, many merchants and others contributing 
to it. «0n the list we find the names of Joshua Holden, 
Theall, Perkins & Co., Charles F. Dodge & Co., G. S. 
Evans, and Charles Bruce, who donated for counsel fees, 
etc., on behalf of the foreigners, sums ranging from ten to 
one hundred and twenty-five dollars. <This, it has been 
observed, makes it clear that only those traders of Sonora 
who transacted business with the foreign element, and so 
profited by their presence, were in favor of a repeal; while 
the American miners, generally, were, for selfish reasons, 
in favor of the law as it stood. 

Affairs are represented as remaining in a state of com- 
parative inaction until the foreign element began to return 
to and work in the mines; and by the next spring a large 
number of those who left had come back and resumed 
operations. 'But neither of the two principal camps ever 
recovered the entire bulk of their population. 
♦ Martinez, lying a short distance east of Columbia, was a 
distinctively Spanish camp, named, as has been already 
said, in honor of Dona Martinez. It had been discovered 
previously, and up to the time of her arrival had been 
known as the "New" or "Spanish" camp. The lady seems 
to have been influential and wealthy, as she brought with 



HISTORY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY, 36 

her a large number of "peons" (Mexican servitors) and 
considerable money and jewelry. r Apropos of the latter, 
the Mexicans attach great importance to the possession of 
jewelry. Indeed, the predominant characteristics of Mexi- 
can families are children, jewelry and dirt. Dona MarLinez 
had very good success in her mining operations, having 
taken up a considerable tract of ground, on which her 
bondmen were set to work. 

The population of the town from being at first ex- 
clusively Spanish speaking, began to contain a sprinkling 
of Americans, who crowded in, while the invariable result 
of the crowding out of the less energetic Mexicans and 
Chilenos followed. These tactics prevailed, as they always 
have where the grasping, combative Anglo-Saxon comes in 
contact with the more decent and mild men of Spanish 
descent. iDona Martinez, however, was left in peace, the 
infringing outsiders, with a rude, though not ineffective 
idea of gallantry, regarding her sex as entitled to the fullest 
protection. * 

On the morning of July 4, 1850, appeared the first 
issue (^ the Sonora Herald, the first newspaper published 
in the California mines. The only files of this very in- 
teresting paper now known to be in existence cover the 
first three years of its life, and are the property of Dr. L. C, 
Gunn, in former times a well known and highly respected 
member of this community, who has kindly loaned the 
papers to assist in the compilation of this work. The first 
seven numbers of this periodical were printed on paper 
nine by thirteen inches in size. With the eighth number 
the sheet was enlarged to twelve by seventeen inches. It 
is interesting to observe the straits to which the publishers 
were put by reason of the scarcity of material. Wrapping 
paper was used in at least one case of necessity, and many 
issues were printed on paper much larger than necessary. 



36 HISTORY or TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 

To be "out of sorts," was, with these pioneer printers an 
every day occurrence, t These drawbacks, however, are not 
alhided to in a spirit of criticism. ; On the contrary, these 
very facts show as plainly as the most detailed descriptions 
what must have been the state of affairs at that time, and 
even arouse our admiration that so interesting, and ably 
conducted a sheet could have been issued. 'Great diffi- 
culties, such as the present country' newspaper editors have 
in some measure to jmeet, must have blocked its way. 
Jsevertheless, ths Sonora Herald existed until the year 1859, 
pursuing its course successfully. In the prospectus^ the 
editors announce that the Sonora Herald is published every 
Saturday morning in the town of Sonora. ' The price of a 
year's subscription is the rather startling figure of twenty 
dollars, and single coj)ieswere fifty cents each. / Advertise- 
ments were inserted at the rate of four dollars for six lines 
or less. 

In the following table will be found the names of the 
various editors and proprietors, and also the length of 
time during which each j)resided over the paper's destinies: 
' John White, from No. 1, Vol. 1, until No, 11, Vol. 1. 

J. G. Marvin, from No. 1, Vol. 1, until No. 18, Vol. 1. 

J. R. Reynolds, from No. 12, Vol. 1, until No. 14, Vol. 1. 

Dr. L. C. Guun, from No. 14, Voll, until No. 47, Vol. 3. 

E. L. Chrisman, from No. 18, Vol. 1, until No. 40, Vol. 1. 

Walter Murray, from No. 46, Vol. 3, until No. 4, Vol. 4. 

J. O'Sullivan, from No. 46, Vol. 3, until No. 37, Vol. 5. 

L. C. Gunn, from No. 4, Vol. 4, until No, 36, Vol. 5. 

J. O'Sullivan, from No. 36, Vol. 5, until No. 18, Vol. 6. 

Alexander Murray, from No. 36, Vol. 5, until No. 8, 
Vol. 6. -. 

E. A. Rockwell, from No. 18, Vol 6, until No. 9, Vol. 8. 

J. O'Sullivan, from No. 9, Vol. 8, until its decease. 

The Herald's politics varied as widely as its editorial 



BISTORT OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 37 

management. It became in succession Independent, Demo- 
cratic, American (Know-Nothing), Whig and finally Re- 
publican. The press first used by the printers of this 
paper was the same on which the manifestoes of the Mexi- 
can 'authorities in California had been printed many years 
before. First being carried from New York to Mexico, it 
had next found its way to Monterey, the seat of govern- 
ment of California under Mexican rule, t Upon it, at a 
later date, the California Star, the pioneer newspaper of 
the Pacific Coast, was worked off. Stockton became its 
next stopping place. Then, as remarked above, the Souora 
Herald was at first printed on it. When that paper was 
enlarged its necessities demanded a different press,, and 
the old contrivance was sold by its owner. Dr. Gunn, to 
George W. Gore, who started the Star, the first paper pub- 
lished in Columbia. An unsatisfied claim for materials 
furnished to the new enterprise, however, compelled the 
latter paper to suspend after a few issues./ Execution was 
levied upon the materials, but before the press could be 
removed, it was set tire to by some one, and the woodwork 
consumed. » The gentleman who had in his possessioai the 
Metallic portion of the machine announced his intention of 
bestowing, it upon some museum ;, bat whether this was 
done or not is not at present known. 

During a portion of its existence, the Herald indulged 
in polyglottism — running two or more columns in Spanish 
and occasionally indulging in French. 'Its course through- 
out evinced great enterprise and ability. 'In the first num- 
ber of tlie Herald is to be seen an advertisement of the first 
stage line from Sonora to Stockton The coaches were to 
• leave, the latter town on Monday and Thursday of each 
week. The fare was twenty dollars; Judge J G. Marvin 
advertises his express line, which has started, connecting 
San Francisco with the southern mines . » People who wish 



38 HISTORY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 

their letters collected and delivered once a week, are ad- 
vised where to leave orders, and the following price is ap- 
- pertded:/ $2 00 for each letter, when we pay postage; $1 50 
when postage is prepaid; $1 GO for a drop letter; 25 cents 
for newspapers; 50 cents for mailing each letter in San 
Francisco; 30 cents for mailing each newspaper in San 
Francisco. , 

In a later number, there, is a proclamation by County 
Judge A. A. H. Tuttle^ that the Court of Sessions offers a 
reward of five hundred dollars for such information as will 
lead to the detection of the murderers of Chase, Hathaway, 
Ford and others, whose murders had recently occurred. 
All Mexicans were particularly commanded to give what- 
ever valuable information they were possessed of to the 
proper officers.' From No. 5, the following is extracted: 
" The gulch at Jamestown has been worked over several 
times; yet it appears to be as productive as ever.' Three 
Chilenos, in a fortnight, have taken out |15,000, and three 
Frenchmen twelve pounds of gold on last Thursday after- 
noon." 

" Mr. G. P. Fowler, of Massachusetts, has shown us a 
mass of the precious metal weighing 4 lbs., 4 ozs. and $8, 
and most beautiful it is.' The lump was found at Shaw's.^ 

"Up to this date we have not had any U. S. postal 
arrangements between San Francisco and Sonora, although 
the citizens, through our columns, frequently ask the ques- 
tion, 'why?' Our only answer is, 'quien sabe?' " 

E. B. & D. H. Hendee advertise the first photographic 
establishment in Sonora, with rooms nearly opposite the 
Court House. 'This location is opposite where the City 
Hotel now stands. iThe entire building was then called 
the El Dorado, Le Coq & Valleau, proprietois. 

Dr. Gunn's residence is described as being a handsome 
two-story adobe building. .Peter Mehen owned a row of 



mSTORY OF TUOLUMNE COUNXr. 39 

four or five wooden stores, and John H. Valleau's lar^e 
frame building, which stood on the site of the theater, after- 
wards kept by John Sedgwick as a livery stable, is, ako 
mentioned. 

The Herald, of August 17, informed its readers that a 
party of three Frenchmen took out of a hole they had sunk 
in Sonora, the enormous sum of three and a half ppunds- 
troy in gold dust, and much more was left until the clean- 
ing up. 

Mr. Oliver Twist, of Mormon Camp, is mentioned as 
having a garden, in which melons were ripening.* This is 
the first mention of gardening; though ranching — particu- 
larly hay raising — had been entered upon before.; L. 
Shelby advertised "a quantity of hay" for sale, on reason- 
able terms, ten miles below the Indian Ranch Ferry, as 
early as the summer of 1850. 



A Riot in Sonora. 

The deep feeling of jealousy and distrust that had, 
through one cause and another, been daily increasing, with 
its attendant ills of threats and violence, culminated in 
July of this year in a series of extraordinary outrages, and 
the lynching of certain parties, and the attempted execu- 
tion of others. Nothing could exceed the state of excite- 
ment into which Sonora, and the Southern Mines in general, 
were thrown by certain events which took place near the 
county seat during the fortnight ending July 20.' The 
circumstances which gave rise to such a condition of aflairs 
were these: ' On the morning of "Wednesday, July 10, four 
Americans arrived in Sonora, having in custody three Mexi- 
can Indians and a Mexican, named Pablo Martinez, Dio- 
nisio Ochoa, Gabino Jesus, and Ruiz Molina; and the re- 



40 HISTORY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 

port immediately became circulated that a horrible murder, 
the third or fourth within a week, had been committed at 
Green Flat Diggings, about eight miles from town. Im- 
mediately the entire population of Sonora crowded in front 
of the house of Justice Barry, and demanded the particu- 
lars of the affair; and as some who possessed, or thought 
they possessed, the desired information, related the horri- 
ble details, the angry exclamations and flashing eyes of the 
mob told plainly of a deep determination to avenge the 
crime that their countrymen had suffered. The prisoners 
were arraigned before Justice Barry, and then commenced 
a scene of tumult and confusion then unparalleled. In the 
tumult the predominant cries were, "string them up!" 
"hang 'em!" "we'll have no mistake this time!" and a rope 
was produced and a knot tied in it, that there be no delay. 
The utmost efforts of the officers of the Court produced no 
impression on the crowd. George Work, the redoubtable 
Sheriff, a man of the steadiest courage and iron nerve, who 
never quailed in the discharge of his duty, was as one 
without influence on the reckless mob. Judge Marvin, As- 
sociate Justice of the Court of Sessions, addressed the 
people, but ineffectually. While these things were trans- 
piring in front of the house. Justice Barry was engaged in 
taking the deposition of the four Americans who brought 
in the prisoners. They testified that on the previous 
evening a Mexican boy had informed them that two 
Americans had been murdered at the Green Flat Diggings, 
but they took no notice of the report. In the morning, 
however, another Mexican called and corroborated the 
boy's statement. Witnesses immediately proceeded to the 
spot indicated, and found there the four prisoners, in the 
act of burning the tent and the bodies of two men. They 
were immediately taken into custody, and brought to So- 
nora. There also appeared in evidence the shovel and 



HISTOnY OF TUOLUMNE COUKTV. 41 

pickax belonging to the prisoners. The defense set up 
by the prisoners was to the effect that it was a custom of 
their countrymen to burn the dead; that the bodies, having 
been dead several days, had become offensive through de- 
composition, and in order to remove the nuisance, they 
attempted to burn them. The prisoners, of whom the 
three Indians were described as uncouth, and the Mexican, 
on the contrary, of gentle and pleasing appearance, main- 
tained a calm and becoming demeanor that aroused the 
sympathies of some in the audience. By this time it was 
resolved by the authorities, as the best that could be done, 
to immediately impanel a jury and proceed with the trial. 
But Mr. McAlpin and others who were drawn upon the 
jury, refused to serve, and the case became still more per- 
plexing. While in consultation the officers had withdrawn, 
and the opportunity was taken by the people to elect a 
Judge from among themselves; and Peter Mehen was chosen 
for the office. A rope was then put around the neck of 
each of the supposed culprits, and they were led to a hill 
in the vicinity of the town, where the trial was commenced 
anew. A jury was impaneled, the trial concluded, and the 
prisoners sentenced to be hanged. The rope was passed 
over the limb of a tree, and the Mexican, chosen as the 
first victim, was given a few moments in which to pray. 
He knelt down, prayed affectingly, kissed the cross he had 
in his bosom, and with the gentlest resignation gave him- 
self into the hands of his executioners. Another moment, 
and Judges Marvin, Tuttle and Radcliffe, together with 
William Ford, County Clerk, and others arrived, and by 
flinging themselves boldly into the crowd, succeeded in 
effecting a diversion that enabled the proper officers to regain 
possession of the prisoners, and contrary to expectation 
they succeeded in lodging them in jail . 

The affairs above described occurred on Wednesday. 



42 HISTORY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 

Tlie prisoners remained in the jail, without any indication 
of an attempt at mob law, until the following Monday, 
which was the day on which it had been anderstood their 
trial was to come off. On the morning of this day a mob 
of eighty men, armed with rifles and shotguns, and march- 
ing in military style, and presenting a most imposing ap- 
pearance, arrived from Green Flat, intent on seeing justice 
done on the murderers of their neighbors. Besides this 
band, there poured in from Jamestown, Shaw's Flat, Co- 
lumbia, Woods' Creek, from mountain, gulch and ravine, 
hundreds of miners, armed with rifles, shotguns, revolvers, 
knives, lances, etc. All were highly excited, and would 
not submit to delay. They halted opiDosite the Court 
House, when Judge Tuttle appeared and addi-essed the 
throng, urging them to be moderate, and assuring them 
that justice would be done; if the men were found guilty 
they would surely meet their deserts, and if they were inno- 
cent they would surely be acquitted. He further urged 
them to respect the law and acquiesce in the verdict of the 
jury, whatever it might be. At the conclusion of this 
sound advice, some one proposed three cheers for the 
speaker, but the crowd silently marched away to their en- 
campment, first posting a guard over the jail. 
» Judge Creaner, of the District Court, was waited upon 
by a delegation who informed him in unmistakable terms 
that the trial must go on that day. The Judge, not in the 
least intimidated, warned them calmly that they were in 
conflict with the law, and announced that no dejDarture 
from the regular order of business would be suffered in his 
court. 

In consequence of a rumor that the Mexican prisoners 
had colleagues in a camj) several miles distant. Sheriff 
Work proceeded there with a posse of twenty men and 
arrested nearly the whole adult portion of the inhabitants, 



HISTORY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 43 

numbering one hundred and ten men ; whom he brought 
to town and confined in a corral, under a strong guard. 

During Monday evening several hundred men arrived in 
town, swelling the ranks of the mob to nearl}- or quite two 
thousand armed men. To oppose this force, of whom the 
greater part were bent on summarily executing the pre- 
sumed offenders, the county officers stood alone, But these 
were men who had the heart and nerve to do their duty in 
any situation. Judge Creaner's firmness has passed into a 
proverb; and than George Work no man was ever better 
qualified to act in times that try men's souls. The remain- 
der of the officers, notably William Ford, the Clerk, and Mr. 
S. A. Booker, the District Attorney, acted bravely. 

When, in the order of business, the case of the four 
Mexicans was called and the}' were arraigned, a most excit- 
ing scene took place. When the plea of " not guilty " was 
heard, one of the guards, standing on a bench, dropped 
his gun, and the hammer, striking some object, exploded the 
weapon. Instantly numberless revolvers were drawn, 
bowie knives flashed forth and the tumult became inde- 
scribable. One man, in his haste to get out, accidentally 
fired his own gun and the terrific melee became tenfold 
fiercer. The struggle to quit the court-room became inde- 
scribably violent. Doors, windows, all means of egress 
were put in requisition. An alarm of fire added to the 
clamor and even the street was cleared instanter. 

Some Mexicans, who were in the crowd, were deliberately 
fired at by different individuals. One announced that he 
fired " on general principles;" another said he thought 
they were trying to rescue the prisoners, so he fired pro- 
miscuously among them. 

It is recorded that the examination was postponed. 

During the following evening the army went on a spree 
of such magnitude that it was seriously feared that grave 



44 HISTORY OF TUOLUMNE COUKTY. 

disturbances would result; but such was not the case, how- 
ever, and in the morning many of them left for their own 
camps, leaving Sonora in comparative quiet. The examina- 
tion of the accused men was resumed, when, there being 
no evidence against them, they were acquitted. So ended 
this curious case, which is given mostly to illustrate the 
peculiar feeling shared by most Americans against the 
Spanish- speaking population. It seems as if the whole 
proceedings were merely an outgrowth from the jealousy 
and distrust which the one race bore the other. 

Although the law had been vindicated and the men, un- 
justly charged with murder, freed from confinement, there 
was still no abatement of the popular feeling of insecurity, 
and still fresh reports (mostly fabricated by interested 
parties) of murders said to have been committed, continued 
to pour in, and a public meeting was held to devise ways 
and means for a better protection of life and property. At 
this meeting, at which A. Elkius presided. Judge Tuttle 
and Joshua Holden, of Sonora; J. W. Van Benschoten, of 
Wood's; D. S. Dikeman, of Jacksonville; Capt. Runnells, 
of Sullivaii's Diggings; VV. C. Wade, of Mormon Gulch, 
and Capt. Stewart, of McLaue's Perry, were appointed a 
committee to make arrangements for lioldiag a mass meet- 
ing of citizeus for a consideration of the grave state of 
affairs. This meeting was called for Sunday, July 21, 
1850, and was held in the plaza. The following resolu- 
tions were adopted: 

" Whekeas, The lives and property of the American citi- 
zens are now in danger from the hands of lawless marau- 
ders of every clime, class and creed under the canopy of 
heaven, and scarce a day passes but we hear of the com- 
mission of the most horrible murders and robberies ; and 
as we have now in our midst the peons of Mexico, the rene- 
gades of South America, and the convicts of the British 
Empire; therefore: 



HISTORY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 45 

Resolved, first, That all foreigners in Tuolumne county 
(except those engaged in permanent business, and of re- 
spectable characters) be required to leave the limits of this 
county within fifteen days from date, unless they obtain a 
permit to remain from the authorities hereinafter named. 

Resolved, second, That the authorities referred to be a 
committee of three, to be chosen or selected by the Ameri- 
can citizens of each camp or diggings. 

Resolved, third, That all the good citizens of this county 
shall resolve themselves into a committee of the whole, to 
carry out the objects of this meeting. 

Resolved, fourth, That the foreigners in this county be, 
and are hereby notified to turn over their firearms and 
deadly weapons to the select-men of each camp or diggings 
forthwith, (except such as may have a permit to hold the 
same;) such select-men shall give a receij^t to such for- 
eigners for the same, and each and every good citizen shall 
have power to disarm all foreigners. 

Resolved, fifth. That the select-men of each camp or 
diggings shall promptly carry out the duties assigned to 
them. 

Resolved, sixth, That five hundred copies of these reso- 
lutions in English and Spanish, be published and forth- 
with distributed throughout the county. 

Resolved, seventh, That the select-men from each camp, 
or diggings, take up subscriptions to defray the necessary 
expense of such publication, and remit the money thus 
collected to the proprietors and publishers of the Sonora 
Herald." 

The publication of these resolutions, together with the 
decided action taken by the people of other camps, had a 
good effect. There was at once a perceptible lull in the 
social atmosphere ; and the Herald, the mouth piece of the 
American faction, was moved to say: 



46 HISTORY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 

" The prompt action of the people in the late emergency 
has had the e£fect of teaching certain hombres a lesson that 
they will not soon forget. * * * it by no means has 
been proven that the late guerilla acts were committed by 
Mexicans or South Americans alone. The outcasts of 
every nation under Heaven have combined to disturb us; 
and we think that now they have been effectually silenced. 
We pray the mining population to assist us in restoring 
public confidence, to return to the old regime, to silence 
the tongues of Sj'dney convicts and boisterous inebriates, 
who delight in tumult and " braggadocio," who palm them- 
selves off as American citizens, and stain a privilege whose 
honor every American citizen should guard with jealous 
care. 

" Real estate is rising in value, and everything is looking 
up. The commercial interests of the country have been 
suffering at the rate of $10,000 per day, and our merchants' 
time lies idly on their hands. * * * Action, action! 
gentlemen. Fold not your hands, but quiet the alarm 
among the men on whose labor your future depends. The 
jealousies of sects and the rivalries of men of different 
countries are small matters at times like this. Let us beg 
the people to use their power mildly. To protect the good 
of what country soever, while they punish the evil disposed. 
Americans! greet kindly the stranger who asks your hospi- 
tality and protection. You may entertain angels unawares. 
The burden of the tax on foreign miners has been rendered 
less obnoxious. The following notice has been distributed 
throughout the county: 

" Notice. — The Collector of Taxes for foreign miners an- 
nounces that he is now authorized by the government to 
receive $20 for the privilege of laboring in the mines until 
the last day of December next, and to issue a license for that 



HISTORY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 47 

period. He is instructed to protect all who comply with 
this requisition, and punish all others as violators of the 
law. The Collector's office is at the head of Washington 
street, Sonora. L. A. Besancon. 

"Aug. 3, 1850. 

"The eflect that we lonj;- ago prognosticated has taken 
place. The miners are rejoiced, and in one or two in- 
stances there have been public manifestations of joy. 
Hundreds who had made preparations to leave the country 
have resolved to make California their homes." 

The improved state of affairs indicated in the above edi- 
torial, may be regarded as the beginning of a more healthy 
and settled condition, which took its rise from the ener- 
getic measures of the American population at the time 
when it seemed as if the foreign element were about to 
usurp the functions of government even, and by terrorism 
rule or ruin the country. 



Business Affairs in Sonora. 

The people of Tuolumne, and of Sonora in particular, 
felicitated themselves upon the improved prospect of busi- 
ness affairs, and argued from the look of things a perma- 
nent prosperity that future years has shown to be well 
founded. At the time of which these facts are noted, 
Sonora contained, according to trus^tworthy estimates, two 
thousand permanent inhabitants with which to begin the 
new era of things. There was invested in merchandising 
the sum of three hundred and fifty thousand dollars, with 
at least one hundred business houses of a substantial char- 
acter, and a large and constantly increasing number of 
comfortable dwellings. Large stocks of goods were carried 



48 HISTORY O? TCOLTTMNE COUNTT. 

by the business houses, and even from the earliest times it 
has always been possible to purchase nearly every article 
of comfort or luxury that the fancy could dictate. In this 
connection it may be appropriate to introduce the prices 
current of the common articles of trade, which will be seen 
to have suffered a very material decrease since the preced- 
ing year. 

' Prices current, prepared expressly for Sonora, by Peter 
Mehen, merchant: 



Flour, per cwt $17 to 

Barley, per cwt. 16 to 18 

Mess Pork, per cwt 45 to 50 

Prime Pork, per cwt 35 to 88 

Bacon and Hams, per lb 55 to 60c. 

Lard, per lb 60 to 75c. 

Rice, per lb 18 to 20c. 

Brown Sugar, per lb 36 to 40c. 

Coffee, green, per lb 60 to 75c. 

Coffee, brown, per lb 80 to 90c. 

Sperm Candles, per lb . 95 to $ 1 

Brandy, per gallon $ 2 to $ 4 

Gin, per case 10 to 11 

Whisky, per gallon 2 to 4 

Claret, per box 10 to 11, 

Among the more prominent^businessjhouses that existed 
at that time were E. Linoberg & Co., who kept a store 
commonly known as the "Tienda Mexicana," situated on 
the corner of Washington and Linoberg streets, of which 
Mr. Morris officiated as head salesman. Their line was 
provisions and clothing. The firm employed a pack train 
which made constant and regular trips to and from Stock- 
ton, laden only with their own purchases. Dodge & Co. 
dealt in beef, but added a stock of provisions, clothing, 






UMj^^, 



.«!<i^_ 



HISTORY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 49 

liquors and groceries, at their store in Washington street, 
fronting the plaza. Apothecaries' Hall, of which John E. 
Stothers was proprietor, was situated on Washington street, 
opposite the Court House. Theall, Perkins & Co. did an 
extensive business in general merchandising. Keynolds & 
Co.'s express, as a portion of the legitimate business, 
engaged in the transmission of letters on a very consider- 
able scale, if their advertisements of unclaimed missives are 
to be taken as a criterion. On some occasions the number 
thus advertised was not less than two hundred and fifty. 
Sullivan & Mehen, auctioneers and commission merchants, 
also wholesale and retail dealers in provisions and miners' 
tools, kept a store on Washington street, fronting the plaza. 
Green & Holden, another prominent firm, occujfied quar- 
ters opposite E. Linoberg's store, on Washington street. 
Peter Meheu's original store, being vacated by him, was 
occupied next by Major Stewart, who carried on a similar 
business. Next, south of the Major's place, was the Sonora 
Eestaurant, situated nearly opposite the town well. The 
establishment was kept by Louis Maris. Labetoure & 
Walsingham were auctioneers and commission merchants. 
At a somewhat later date, Bennett & Phillips opened a 
store in the northern end of town, which had been occu- 
pied by Street & Co., with an assortment of provisions, 
clothing and miscellaneous goods. The Eagle Eestaurant, 
founded in 1851 by Sanderson & Co., upon the dissolution 
of their co-partnership, was afterwards carried on by Syl- 
vester & Harlow. Messrs. Street & Co. instituted]the man- 
ufacture of syrups in Sonora, in the Spring or Summer of 
1851. Yaney & Barabino kept a large stock of mixed goods 
and were the most prominent dealers in cigars, tobacco, etc. 
Other merchants doing business in Sonora were A. Eikins, 
P. McD. Collins, M. M. Steward, Terrence Clark, Louis 
Elordi, G. G. Belt, besides others, many Mexicans. W. 



50 HISTOKY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 

O. Tripp was the first shoemaker to establish himself in 
town. 

Messrs. Moore & Edmundson did an express business, 
running a passenger or saddle train to and from Stockton 
tri-weekly. 

Coytier & Daney, whose place of business was in Miran- 
da's house, on "Washington street, beside the Sonora drug- 
store, kept an assortment of guns and pistols, ammunition 
and other articles. 

The above notes are taken partly from the old Sonora 
Herald and partly from personal recollections of living men 
and will bear the test of the liveliest memories. It is very 
difficult at this time to procure accurate details of the con- 
dition of things at the time now under consideration, and 
so, in order to avoid any possibility of error, many points 
of interest, but of doubtful authority, have been omitted. 
Subsequently, however, owing to the more settled state of 
society, to the multiplication of newsjDapers and to the less 
remote date, historical facts became more easy of access 
and of verification, and the historian's task easier in propor- 
tion. 

Having considered the resources and business of Sonora, 
it is now proposed to proceed to the remaining camps in 
the county. 

Jacksonville, as has already been said, was founded in 
the Spring of '49 by Col. Alden A. M. Jackson, although 
that gentleman does not possess the distinction of being 
the first settler, for that honor belongs to a Mr. Smart, who 
located there a few weeks previously and engaged in agri- 
cultural pursuits. His property was known as " Spring 
Garden," which acquired celebrity as being the first fruit 
garden in this portion of the State . 

The new town grew but slowly, as compared with tbe rate 
of increase of other locations. Its growth, however, was 



HISTORY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 51 

permanent. From the time when Col. Jackson erected the 
first store until the middle of the Summer of 1851, there 
had been a steady enlargement, sufficient to place it second 
only to Sonora in point of population. And in later years, 
although Jacksonville suffered the inevitable decline that 
has attended all the mining towns of that era. still she sank 
into insignificance but slowly. Situated upon the Tuolumne 
River, the efforts of her inhabitants have always been di- 
rected to mining the bed of that stream, which at its low 
stage, in the months of August, September, October and 
November, is successfully done. At other times, the flats 
and gulches of the surrounding country afford a field for 
the exercise of their industry. 

The mining operations conducted here were of a very ex- 
tensive character for that day, being devoted to turning the 
course of the river. The Jacksonville Damming Comjjany 
was organized on the 20th of January, 1850, with the ob- 
ject stated as follows: " To change the present course of 
Tuolumne River, above and below Wood's Creek, by digging 
a canal of 20 feet in width by 2,380 feet in length, requir- 
ing a depth of 2 feet in the first 200 feet, and an average 
depth of 18 inches throughout." The company, comprising 
fifty members, went to work and constructed the race and 
also a stone dam across the river. After all this work, the 
race had to be deepened throughout from 10 to 20 feet, but 
before the work could be completed, a freshet destroyed the 
portion completed. 

The company erected a wing dam, by which means they 
took out sixteen thousand dollars, in fifteen days, from 
two small holes, sunk to the bed-rock, and to keep these 
clear from water, twenty-eight men were employed in 
pumping. 

Abandoning work for the rainy season, they increased the 
number of shares to one hundred, and resumed their at- 



52 HISTORY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 

tempts in the summer of 1851. This year they deepened 
the race and built a dam of logs, locked together, and 
supported by other logs pinned to them at right angles, 
with a backing of stone and dirt. This form of dam has 
always been found to give better results, as to its efficiency 
and durability, in withstanding the severe floods of winter, 
than stone structures, being also less difficult and costly of 
construction. The above-mentioned dam, which occupied 
only seven wrecks in its construction, replaced a stone 
structure which was eight months in building. 

The Directors of the company were Messrs. Sayres, 
Sweet, Pitts, Barber, McKey, Stoddard, Hazen, Francis 
Hull, Murphy, Eeynolds, Fletcher and Jenkinson. 

Hawkins' Bar, situated on the Tuolumne, below Jack- 
sonville, was the site of the first river-bed workings on the 
Tuolumne. Its name was derived from one Hawkins, who 
kept a trading tent, the first in the place. In April, 1849, 
there were fifteen or twenty miners working on the banks, 
with pans and rockers, in the primitive mode of mining. 
By September of the same year, the population had in- 
creased to seven hundred men, who, at the first legislative 
election, cast five hundred votes. The hillsides were cov- 
ered vith tents, and all the bustle characteristic of some 
old market town was exhibited. Large ojDerations were 
commenced, but the rise of the water interfered disas- 
trously with them, as had been the case at Jacksonville. 
Consequent upon this, large numbers left the camp, while 
the remainder gave themselves to the digging of an im- 
mense canal for the complete drainage of the bar in the 
coming season. Again fortune frowned upon their eftbrts, 
for in the summer of 1850 a sudden rise of the water drove 
out of their respective claims the various companies, who 
had just commenced to extract gold. At that time the 
number of miners was six hundred. By the next year the 



HISTORY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 53 

number had dwindled to one hundred and fifty, with per- 
haps one hundred on the opposite side of the river, and 
half as many more scattered along" the river, from Red 
Mountain Bar to Swett's Bar. The latter worked either 
alone, or with two or three in company. The average daily 
product of these river miners, in the year 1851, was stated 
at eight dollars per da3^ 

Of the claims at Hawkins''Bar,that of Captain Lutter 
was worked by coffer damming, as was also that of Arm- 
strong. These two claims employed fourteen men. The 
McAvoy Company consisted of sixty men, who, for a time, 
averaged twenty dollars per day each. The original com- 
pany, consisting of one hundred and thirteen men, known 
as the Hawkins' Bar Company, after two years of persist- 
ent efforts, finally abandoned their attempts to work the 
bed of the river by damming. 

Nearly the same was the experience at the several camp 
of Stevens' Bar, Indian, Texas, Morgan's, Don Pedro's 
Rogers', Swett's, and many other "Bars" on the Tuolumne. 
In the beginning of November, 1849, the Swett's Bar Com- 
pany, composed of seventy members, commenced oper- 
ations by cutting a race, concluding their work just as the 
rise of the waters took place and caused an abandonment 
for the season of their contemplated works. Such misfor- 
tunes have almost invariably befallen the river miners, but 
have never disheartened them. 

On the 10th of August, 1850, the same company, then 
reduced to sixty men, resumed their labors, widening their 
race to twelve feet width at bottom. After fifty-nine days, 
they had completed the dam, only to have it washed away 
the same evening. Rebuilding it, it was again washed 
away, and the men laid aside their task for the year, it 
being then too late to effect anything. 



54 HISTORY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 

In August, 1851, resuming work, the company, now con- 
sisting of but twenty-seven men, in a few weeks had com- 
pleted a dam, which enabled them to engage in taking out 
gold, which they did at the rate of an ounce per daj' to the 
man, and continuing for some time very successfully. 

The "Stony Point" Company abandoned their work 
under the pressure of difficulties, but another company, 
consisting of thirteen members, calling themselves the 
"Rum Blossom" Company, achieved a considerable reward . 

The population of Swett's Bar was estimated, in 1851, 
at one hundred and thirty men. 

Big Oak Flat, situated on the south side of the Tuolumne 
River, was first located and the diggings opened by James 
Savage, a white man, who had acquired influence over a 
large number of Digger Indians, whose labor he utilized in 
his mines, paying them with provisions, blankets, etc., and 
also jjrotecting them — or pretending to protect them— from 
the encroachments of other whites. 

In the summer of that year a considerable number of 
Mexican and American miners settled here, forming the 
camps of Big Oak Flat and First, and Second Garrote. 
The origin of the name Garrote is traced to the fact that a 
Mexican who was convicted of stealing, suffered death by 
hanging, at tlie hands of his countrymen, whence the word. 
An interesting portion of the history of these camps is the 
account of a fracas between the Indians and whites, which 
was brought about in the following way: a Texan whose 
name was Rose, was one day at the Indian camp, when 
words were exchanged between him and the chief, " Lo- 
tario," ending in the fatal stabbing of the latter. The In- 
dians present immediately killed Rose, by shooting him 
with arrows. The whites in the neighborhood rushed to 
arms, and without inquiring into the cause of the trouble, 
attacked the natives with firearms, killing two and wound- 



HISTORY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 55 

ing several. This fracas resulted in the destruction of all 
relations between the whites and the aborigines for a con- 
siderable time. The red men were finally pacified, how- 
ever, through the exertions of Mr. Savage. 

The placers in the vicinity of the Flat have always been 
favorably regarded, but a drawback from the scarcity of 
water always exercised a prejudicial efi'ect. About 1855, 
however, a ditch was commenced by some enterprising in- 
dividuals for the purpose of bringing water from the South 
Pork of the Tuolumne, which should enable the placers in 
the vicinity of Big Oak Flat, the two Garrotes, Spring 
Gulch, Big Creek, Copps' Creek, and other neighboring 
localities, to be worked. About eighteen miles of this 
ditch were completed, and considerable work done on the 
remainder, when its further progress was stayed, owing to 
pecuniary difficulties. Arrangements were made afterward 
to enable the work to proceed, and it was in part com- 
pleted. 

The next important matter of general interest that took 
place subsequent to the tax troubles heretofore narrated, 
was the memorable riot at Holden's Garden. This fight, 
though typical of the difficulties relating to rights of pos- 
sessors of mining claims, caused undue excitement in So- 
nora, and furnishes an instructive bit of history, whose 
interest time has not abated. 

In February, 1851, several mining companies of miners 
along the edge of Mr. Joshua Holden's garden, now the 
time-honored title of the low land lying above and to the 
north of the present City Waterworks, and bordering on 
Woods' Creek, the search for gold having proved success- 
ful, the various parties entered into an agreement to re- 
imburse the proprietor of the soil for all damages accruing 
to the ground and the growing crops. After Mr. Holden's 
departure for San Francisco, a short time afterward, the 



56 HISTORY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 

Washington Company commeuced encroaching upon the 
more valuable portions of the garden, in the course of their 
work finding considerable quantities of gold, to secure 
which they laid off an extensive mining claim. 

On Mr. Holden's return, he proposed an arrangement 
by which he was to receive compensation for the additional 
damage to crops, etc., but at a meeting of those interested, 
at which the miners, but not Mr. Holden, were present, 
opposition was made to paying any damages whatever, and 
the meeting was broken up without any action on that point. 
On the following day a personal collision occurred between 
Mr. Holden and two of the members of the Washington 
Company, at which a number of bystanders, mostly gam- 
blers and roughs, resisted, by the exhibition of pistols, the 
attempts of other individuals of that company to assist 
their fellow-members. By this interference, the gambling 
community became unwittingly identified with Mr. Holden's 
cause, a fact that proved of the greatest detriment to that 
gentleman subsequently. 

Later in the day, this portion of the gambling fi-aternity, 
fourteen in number, "jumped" a portion of the ground 
claimed by the Washington Company, and prepared to 
hold it at all hazards. Whether or not Mr. Holden was a 
party to this action is not at all clear. It is highly jorob- 
able, from the circumstances, that he was; but his standing 
as a business man and his well known character,would seem 
to contradict that theory. The Sonora Herald, the only 
paper published at the time, by the tenor of its remarks,, 
would indicate that he had nothing to do with it; but the 
prevailing opinion was strongly against him, as will be seen 
in the conclusion of this narrative. 

Being invited to go upon the ground to observe the 
boundaries of the Washington Company's claim, Mr. Hol- 
den accepted, but delayed going until the next morning. 



HISTORY OF TDOLUMNE COUNTY. 57 

In the meantime the jumping party organized, armed them- 
selves, and determined to hold their claim at all hazards. 
Proceeding to the ground, against the advice of Mr. Hol- 
den, they found there all the members of the Washington 
Company, prepared with firearms to receive them, but 
keeping quietly at work in their ditch. The aggressors 
arranged themselves on a hill, perhaps a hundred yards 
distant. 

Major Barry (the celebrated Justice) was an eje-witness, 
and to him the following account is due. He said: "About 
eight o'clock in the morning I went to the garden, having 
understood that a difficulty was expected between two com- 
panies, each contending for rights in the same claim. 
When I had approached within about thirty feet of the 
claim I heard a shout behind, and, turning round, I saw a 
company of men, all armed, about three hundred yards off. 
One young man, named Alexander Saloschen, was running 
towards the Garden Company [Washington Company], with, 
his rifle, against the remonstrances of his own party, who 
shouted to him not to shoot. As he came within hailing 
distance of me, I told him to go back, and he did so for a 
short distance, but turning again, he ran and fired on 
the Garden Company, which was quickly returned with a 
volley. All the arms on both sides were fired off, amount- 
ing, it is supposed, to from sixty to seventy-five shots. 
Only one man was killed —named Leven Davis. The young 
man who commenced the attack was slightly wounded in 
the cheek. Of the Garden Company, three were wounded, 
but not dangerously. Thus the matter rested for a mo- 
ment. The Garden ComjDany shortly after held a meeting 
and appointed a committee to draft resolutions. I was 
called upon to address the assembly, which by this time 
amounted to about five or six hundred, and there was the 
most profound order and attention. They then adjourned. 



58 HISTORY OP TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 

to meet again at three o'clock, at which time they convened, 
and all passed off in good order. An arrest was issued 
from my office, as Justice of the Peace, and handed to the 
High Sheriff, to bring up the originators of the riot. Sev- 
eral persons were brought in, but not a witness appeared 
on the part of the State; and so, of course, there was no 
action. Mr. Holden was exculpated from all participation 
or blame, he himself having invited the most rigid investi- 
gation." 

In this affray Leven Davis, a young man on the side of 
the gamblers, was shot in the head, dying immediately. 
The gambler, Saloschen, who fired the first shot and re- 
ceived 'a slight wound in the face, was a former partner of 
Labetoure, a well known French resident, previously men- 
tioned. At a later date he resided in Stockton, which place 
became too hot to hold him, in consequence of an unpro- 
voked attack upon a citizen. After leaving that city, all 
traces of him were lost. 

Of the men belonging to the Washington Company, 
whom Justice Barry described as " wounded, but not dan- 
gerously," two died of their wounds; showing that the 
gentleman was misinformed as to their true condition. 

Immediately ujjon the above events taking place, the re- 
port spread that the gamblers of Sonora had taken up arms 
against the miners. The excitement spread, and the sur- 
rounding camps poured out their population toward Sonora, 
as the invariable habit was, and the mass-meeting, a pecu- 
liarity of the times, was j^romptly held, at which Major 
Solomon, afterward Sheriff, presided, and Caleb Dorsey, 
known to all Tuolumneites, was Secretary. Resolutions, of 
course, were adopted. They read as follows: 

"Whereas: An outrage of the grossest nature has been 
perpetrated upon the miners of Sonora, Wood's Creek, 
Shaw's Flat and vicinity, while in the peaceable pursuit of 



HISTORY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 59 

an honest livelihood, by a party of cut-ihroats and gam- 
blers, headed by one Joshua Holden, and residing in So- 
noi'a; therefore, 

"Resolvrd, That the said Holden be immediately arrested 
and tried by the civil authorities of the county. 

"Resolved, That all those persons who were engaged in 
making the unprovoked attack, on the morning of the 18th 
of March, are, in the opinion of this meeting, guilty of at- 
tempt at premeditated murder; and to prevent the occur- 
rence of like scenes again, we demand the immediate arrest 
and trial of said persons — the cases to be tried and sub- 
mitted as in the above resolution. 

"Resolved, That in the event of any future aggression by 
the same individual, or his abettors, we pledge ourselves to 
rid this region of their presence. 

''Resolved, That this meeting pledge their sacred honor to 
carry out these resolutions, and to render their assistance, 
if necessary, in apprehending the various parties; also to 
prevent the use of firearms in determining disputes in fu- 
ture. 

"Resolved, That these resolutions be j)ublished in the 
Sonora Eei-ald." 

The paper from which the above report is taken proceeds 
as follows : 

"We have endeavored to give a plain statement gathered 
from parties on both sides. All who read it will, we think, 
exculpate the Washington Company, and also Mr. Holden, 
except so far as the mode of redress taken by him on the 
preceding day for the insulting language said to have been 
used. There was the civil law, and, as we think, he should 
have tried its efficacy. But that difficulty was afterward 
settled between him and the two men. What rankled in 
the breasts of the American miners was, that pistols should 
have been drawn upon them. They do not like such pro- 



60 HISTORY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 

ceedings, and the day has come when they will put them 
down. It has been customary for some men to browbeat 
all with whom they come in contact. If anything is said 
or done that does not please them, a six-shooter is forth- 
with presented. The miners and the sober citizens will 
tolerate this no longer. Never was a more foolish or more 
culpable act committed, than that of going armed to take 
possession of a disputed claim. An arbitrator or a jury 
can decide disputes, and good American citizens will here- 
after compel the substitution of such tribunals in the place 
of Bowie-knives and Colt's revolvers." 

In consequence of the expressed opinion concerning the 
innocence of Mr. Holden, the editors published the defama- 
tory resolutions without endorsemtnt. 

In the Spring of 1851 occurred also two notorious mur- 
ders, which, though not noticeable for any peculiarity or 
for the standing of the parties concerned, still strongly at- 
tracted public attention and they were matters of com- 
mon talk for a considerable length of time. The 
murders alluded to were that of Tyndal Newby by A. J. 
Fuller, and George Palmer by John Thornley, The former 
case occurred at Smith's Flat, and on the trial, which took 
place in March, the following circumstances were elicited : 

Fuller and his victim were partners in mining, at the 
Flat. For awhile they lived together in harmony, but a 
difficulty arose in relation to Fuller's taking some of the 
partnership funds to gamble with. Later, the quarrel was 
augmented by a dispute concerning the possession of a fly- 
tent. Finally, these troubles culminated in a fist-fight, 
Fuller being decidedlg worsted. Being thrown, he yet re- 
tained his hold on his stronger partner, who, in order to 
release himself, threw hot coals and ashes in his opponent's 
face as he lay upon him. Both arose, and Fuller procuring 



HISTORY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 61 

bis ride, shot at Newb}^ who was retreating, and gave him 
a mortal wound. 

The principal witnesses in this trial were Messrs. Callo- 
way, Staples and Carey. The District Attorney, J. K. Sha- 
fer, in conjunction with Mr. Irving, of San Francisco, were 
of the side of the prosecution, while John M. Huntington 
and E, C. Marshall, partners in law, and both prominent 
lawyers, acted for the defense. Their exertions were suc- 
cessful to such a degree that, in spite of a plain case of 
murder being made out, the jury brought in a verdict of 
manslaughter, and tixed the penalty at nine months' im- 
prisonment and a fine of one hundred dollars ! This result 
is ascribed to the powerful argument of Mr. Marshall. 

The latter gentleman would seem to have had abilities of 
no common order, added to a rough but effective manner, 
that made him peculiarl}' adapted to the situations in which 
he found himself placed. It is of him that " Cosmorama,'' 
(Captain Tom Stoddart), ths able correspondent of a 
Tuolumne nevv'spaper, related this incident : 

" The first assemblage for political pvirposefs occurred at 
Lyttou's Exchange, Sonora. The chairman. General L. 
A. Besancon, explained the object of the meeting, and 
urged an immediate organization of the Democratic party. 

" Up to this time there had been no decided advantage in 
either the Democratic or Whig parties, both seeming actu- 
ated by the same spirit of apathy ; but a circumstance was 
about to occur by which the political proclivities of the 
miners of Tuolumne were to be unmistakably marked. 
Mr. Edward Marshall, brother of the celebrated Tom Mar- 
shall, of Kentucky, having come forward, and as he pre- 
faced his remarks by saying he was glad to appear before 
the assemblage as a Democrat, having been born and 
raised on good Democratic soil, the Whigs who were present 
showed a disposition to hiss down his speech and disturb 



62 mSTOBY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 

the meeting. This raised the high-spirited Kentuckian, 
and he paused for an instant, then throwing open his coat, 
he commenced such a burst of eloquence and determina- 
tion as completely overawed his opponents. His exact 
words were : ' / have been in larger crowds than this, and a 
great deal more dangerous.' Throwing off his coat so as to 
expose his revolver, he added : ' And by God's will, I am 
going to make a Democratic speech. ' The Democrats present 
cheered, and those who were on the fence going over to 
the Democrats, the Whigs were completely in the minority 
in Tuolumne county." This incident occurred in 1850. 

No great excitement was occasioned b} the murder just 
described, nor were there attempts made at lynching the 
prisoner. There had been a notable change in the feeling 
regarding such matters taking place, and this change was 
becoming more marked. The action of vigilance commit- 
tees and lynch law proceedings were less favorably looked 
upon, and when in 1851 a man named Thomas Jones was 
given fifty lashes on the bare back, with the added igno- 
miny of being branded on the hip, and half his head 
shaved, public feeling took sides with the culprit, and his 
alleged offense — horse-stealing — although looked upon as 
a grave crime in those days, was thought to have been too 
severely expiated. 

Juries evidently partook of this feeling of leniency 
toward accused parties, for although ridiculously light had 
been Fuller's sentence for the murder of his partner, yet 
it was reserved for another jury to overstrain the quality of 
mercy and set free as cold-blooded and outrageous a mur- 
derer as had thus far added to the dark records of assassin- 
ation. 

George Palmer, a native of New York, and a miner by 
profession, was eating his supper at the " Arkansas Hotel," 
in the northern part of Sonora, when John Thornley, other- 



ISTORT OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 63 

wise called Wilson, a man of bad character, already the 
slayer of one man, entered the hotel, and approaching Pal- 
mer, revolver in hand, ordered him from the house. 
Palmer, begging him not to shoot, acquiesced, and leaving 
the hotel walked a dozen paces, when Thornley fired two 
shots at him, the second of which inflicted a death wound. 

The murderer fled, and, aided by a dark nie^ht, made his 
escape to Green Springs, the next day proceeding to 
Hawkins' Bar, but came back to Green Springs within a 
day or two, and was there taken by Sheriff Work and 
Deputy Sheriff Vyse, and lodged in jail at Sonora. As 
soon as it became known that he had been captured, a 
people's meeting was held and a feeble attempt made to 
get possession of the prisoner ; but as the attempt extended 
no farther than demanding him of the Sheriff, it was 
necessarily unsuccessful. Meanwhile the culprit was taken 
before Judge Tuttle, and his examination commenced. 
Six Deputy Constables, Messrs. Warren, Miller, Wood- 
worth, Alexander, Pierson and Denman, were appointed to 
aid the Sheriff to maintain strict order. The conclusion 
reached, the prisoner was committed to jail to await his 
trial by the District Court. 

The Herald, describing these occurrences, laments the 
insecure condition of the county jail at that time, a fear 
that proved well founded, for the miscreant broke jail 
shortly after, and escaped to Los Angeles. After several 
months he was recaptured, brought back to Sonora, tried 
and acquitted ! 



The Holden's Garden Chispa. 

The next event possessing historical interest that is found 
to ocour in the records of Tuolumne was the discovery of 
an enormous lump of gold. The Sonora Herald, of May 3, 
1851, spoke as follows concerning it: 



€4 HISTORY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 

"The largest lump of gold that has yet been found was 
taken from Holden's Garden last Saturday evening — 
weighing 28 pounds and 4 ounces, lacking 15 grains. It 
is mixed with quartz, but the gold is estimated at 20 pounds. 
As yet it has not been accurately' weighed in water, and so 
we can not exactly state the relative proportions of gold 
and quartz. Mr. Peter Melien offered four tlwimand five 
hundred dollars for the lump, at sight, but his offer was not 
accepted. The fortunate i3arty consisted of eight men, 
and are known under the name of " Wheaton Company." 
This was the first partj^ that undertook to work the spot 
known as Holden's Garden, some two months since, their 
claim being at the foot of the quartz mountain. Between 
them and Mr. Holden there has evQr been, we believe, the 
most amicable feelings, and there is probably no person in 
town who is better pleased than Mr. Holden to hear that 
the company have been so successful. From the first they 
have been taking out gold by the pounds. Frequently 
their day's work has amounted to five pounds. For a week 
or two, however, the yield has been comparatively small, 
and some of the members, accustomed to heavy strikes, 
were beginning to be discouraged. Two of the original 
party sold out to Mr. Rounds and Mr. Gore, who entered 
the company just in time to share the glory and the profits 
of the big lump. The names of the present members are, 
Edward E. Wheaton, from Baltimore; Hiram T. Fuller, 
Vermont; W. J. Harris, Maine; Jesse Allen and John M. 
Lockwood, New York City; John R. Valleau, Natchez, Mis- 
sissippi; A. Gore, Alabama; and Spafford F. Rounds, Up- 
per Canada. A more industrious, moral, intelligent, and 
in every way worthy company can not probably be found 
in California. It alwaj's gives pleasure to hear of the suc- 
cess of such men; and such are the men who, in the main, 
are bound to be successful in this coiantry. After telling 



HISTORY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 65 

about the big lump, it may appear rather insignificant to 
add that the same company took out tivo pounds of fine gold 
the same day. We mention this circumstance simply to 
guard Atlantic editors against the mistake into which some 
of them have fallen in supposing that all the gold is in big 
lumps, and that they are as common here as paving stones 
on Long' Island. " 



The Barry Papers. 

Thus far this history has dealt solely with the leading 
facts relating to the progress of the various mining camps 
contained within the present limits of Tuolumne. It is 
considered proper here to introduce references and al- 
lusions to such of the less important, but possibly as inter- 
esting, phases of pioneer existence as will throw light upon 
the inner life of the people who delved here for gold. This 
section, then, will include such matters Els have comedown 
to the present, more or less perfectly authenticated, and 
bearing directly upon affairs with which all are acquainted 
whose memories run back through the three decades that 
separate the placid present from the energetic past. 

Among the mementoes of the "flush times" that have by 
tradition been handed down to the present time, are the 
famous " Barry Papers," which composed the docket of 
Justice E. C. Barry. The original docket can not at this 
time be found, although strenuous efforts to do so hare 
been made by the compilers of this volume. It has moat 
likely been destroyed in some of the numerous fires that 
have devastated Sonora, or, if still in existence, it doubtless 
lies hidden in some forgotten nook. Its contents included 
the following indorsements on the papers in Coroner's in- 
quests held by Barry, in his capacity of Justice and e-x 
officio Coroner: 



66 HISTORY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 

[No. 1.] " Wm. Doff, who was murdered with Buck, Oc- 
tober 20, 1850, one mile from office. There was $13 found 
on body of deceased, which I handed over to J. M. Hun- 
tington, Public Administrator. Nothing more found to be 
his. 

R. C. Barry, Justice Peace. 

Coroner Protem. 
(No clue to murderers.)" 

[No. 2.] " Michael Burk, Oct. 20, 1850; murdered one 
mile from town. No effects found on deceased. 

R. C. Barry, Justice Peace. 

Coroner Protem." 

[No. 3. J " George Williams, Oct. 22, 1850, cut his throat 
with a razor. No property whatever. 

R. C. Barry, Justice Peace. 

Acting Coroner. " 

[No. 4.] " Dr. James Say, Oct. 28,1850; it was rumored 
that deceased was poisoned, but, upon a post mortem ex- 
amination. Dr. Bradshaw found that he died of disease of 
the hart. No property whatever except about $50, which 
was appropriated to burying the Body. 

R, C. Barry, Justice Peace. 

Acting Coroner." 

[No. 15.] "Wm. Bowen, June 26, 1851. Bowen was 
hung by the mob at Curtises Creek, for killing A. Boggs. 
No property found belonging to deceased. The law has 
never discovered the hangmen. Warrants issued for Hogg 
and others. No evidence to bind over, after much exam- 
ination. Justice's fees, $10. 

R. C. Barry, Justice Peace. 

Acting: Coroner." 



HISTORY OF TU0LUM:NE COUNTY. 67 

[No. 8.] " James Haden, Feb. 25, 1851, was found mur- 
dered in Washington street, by some sharp instrument, 
late at night. No property. No clue to the purpetrater. 

R. C Barry, Justice Peace. 

Acting Coroner," 

[No. 9.] "Leven Davis, March 13, 1851, was killed by 
a rifle shot fired from Holden's Garden, in a Jumping Claim 
Row. R. C. Barry, Justice Peace. 

Acting Coroner." 

[No. 10.] "Wm. A. Bowen, April 2, 1851, was found 
murdered back of Washington street, ner Holden's. Was 
cut to death with a knife. No clue to the purpetrater. 

R. C. Barry, Justice Peace. 

Acting Coroner." 

This reference is to a case described thus, in the Herald 
of that time: 

"About two o'clock on Monday morning a j^oung man 
named William Bowen, from Providence, Rhode Island, 
was stabbed with a sword or knife, and died near daybreak. 
He appeared to be about 22 or 23 years of age. His name, 
together with an anchor, were pricked in Indian ink on 
his arm. It has not been discovered who committed the 
deed, but it may be traced to his own folly. As far as we 
can learn, he was flourishing a sword in a Spanish house 
just behind Justice Barry's ofiice, where men were drunk 
and women were dancing, at a late hour of the night. The 
place, the company, and the hour, were all against him; 
and we trust the unhappy result will be a warning to others. 
Major Barry held an inquest, and learned the above par- 
ticulars, which he has kindly furnished." 

[No. 16.] " Inquest upon body of William Clark, July 16, 
1851, was found dead in his bed, about a mile north of this 



68 HISTORY OF TUOLUMKE COUNTY. 

office, in a tent, under suspitious surcomstances, but was 
found on examination to of died sudenly a natural death 
by disease of the heart and lungs; no proj^erty but an old 
tent and a few little cooking and keeping fixtures — appro- 
priated them to burying the body. R. C. BERRY, 

Justice Peace, acting Coroner." 

No. 17. " William Ford, July 28, 1851, was shot and 
killed by a j'oung man called Stud-Horse Bob — was con- 
sidered justifiable; no property found with him, but had 
some means in the hands of Major Holdeu, who adminis- 
tered. Arrested him and examined the case — no fault 
found, Justice's fees $10." 

Copy of a summons issued by Justice Barry in an action 
for restitution of property and damages: 

" State of California, |^ 

County of Tuolumne, j 

To the Sheriff or any Constable of the aifresaid counfij, 
greeting: You are hereby commanded to summons Maberry 
and Street to appear before me on the eighth day of no- 
vember A. D. 1851 at the hour of nine o'clock to answer to 
complaint filed in this court by D. T. Donnaeld where in 
he charges them with a nucense by putting a privy on a lof; 
which they have jumped belonging to Pltff as a possessor 
right, he now comes to claim his rights as an American 
Cittizen by claiming a writ to dispossess them and to have 
restitution according to law, with appropriate damages for 
the impossission now about to be carried out against him 
by such high-handed and mercenary arrogance on the part 
of the aforesaid acused. R. C. Barry." 

" Sonora City, Nov. 5, 1851." 

On one occasion, a two-days' trial was held in which the 
State prosecuted a Mexican named Barretta for theft. 
Most of the legal profession then in Sonora were engaged 



HISTORY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 69 

on one side or the other, and at the end Justice Barry de- 
livered in writing the following decision, certainly unpar- 
alleled in the annals of law : 

" State of California, 

County of Tuolumne. 

" Having investigated the case wherein Berretta has 

been charged by an old Mexican Woman named Maria 
Toja with having abstracted a box of money which was 
hurried in the ground, jointly belonging to herself and 
daughter, and carrying it or the contents away from her 
dwelling, and appropriating the same to his own use and 
benifet, the suppossed amount being over too hundred 
dollars ; but failing to prove positively that it contained 
over twent}^ and that proven by testimony of his owne wit- 
ness and by his owne acknowledgment, the case being so 
at variance with the common dictates of humanity, and 
having bean done under very painful surcumstances when 
the young woman was about to close her existance, the day 
before she died, and her aged mother at the same lime 
lying on her bead of sickness, unable to rise and get a 
morsel of food for herself and he at the time presenting 
himself, as an angel of releaf to the poor and destitute 
sick when twenty poor dollars might have releaved the 
emediate necessitys of the poor, enfeabled sick, and desti- 
tute old woman far from home and friends. Calls imperi- 
tively for a severe rebuke and repremand for sutch inhu- 
man and almost impresedented conduct, as also the neces- 
sity of binding him over to the Court of Sessions in the 
sum of $500.00. E. C. Barry, Justice Peace." 

The foregoing extracts are beyond a doubt authentic. 
There have, been published at various times, however, 
within the last twenty-five years, passages claiming to be 
taken from this celebrated docket, but which subjected to 



70 HISTORY OF TtTOLUMNE COUNTY. 

careful scrutiny, are seen to bear internal evidence of 
spuriousness. Such paragraphs have proved entertaining 
reading, but it has been the aim in preparing this work to 
omit everything of which the slightest probability of falsity 
exists. 

It has been remarked that the duties and powers of the 
early Justices were extensive and ill-defined. The sub- 
joined jDroclamation will serve to indicate the variety of 
these powers : 

" All persons having stray horses, mules, etc., will come 
before the Justice of the Peace and report the same, or be 
dealt with according to law. E. C. Babry, J. P. 

"Sonora, June 9, 1850. 

" N. B. — Any person knowing of stray animals in the 
hands of any person, will do well to report at this office. 

K. C. B." 

" All persons are forbid firing off guns or pistols within 
the limits of this town, under penalty ; and under no plea 
will it hereafter be submitted to ; therefore a derogation 
from this notice will be dealt with according to the strict- 
est rigor of the law so applying, as a misdemeanor, and a 
disturbance of the peaceful citizens of Sonora. 

"June 9, 1850. R. C. Barry, J. P." 

Major Barry retired in 1852 from the Justiceship, giving 
place to H. G. Piatt and C. M. Radcliffe. Subsequently 
he sent in a bill for office expenses, etc., connected with 
his term of office, amounting to three thousand, two hun- 
dred and one dollars, which the Supervisors evidently con- 
sidered extortionate, even for those " flush times," for the 
bill was cut down to six hundred dollars, and only then 
allowed after much discussion. 

Also peculiar, but in a less degree, was the eccentric 
Judge Jenkins, who officiated as Justice of the Peace in 



HISTORY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 71 

Sonora during a portion of the year 1853. Of this gentle- 
man these incidents have been related : 

A man by the name of Jewell entered the American 
Hotel in Sonora, kept by Charles Ashton, and engaged in 
a dispute with the proprietor. The latter attacked him 
with a knife, evidently intending to cut his head off, but 
only succeeded in inflicting several gashes across his 
throat, none of which were of a serious character. Both 
were taken before Judge Jenkins, who, after hearing the 
evidence, pronounced judgment as follows: "Charley, I 
have to fine you ten dollars and half the costs; and as for 
you, Jewell, you're a disgrace to any community, and I 
fine you ten dollars and the other half!" 

Complaint, it is said, was once entered before Judge 
Jenkins by a young lady against a young man, on a some- 
what delicate subject. It was, in short, a charge of seduc- 
tion ; to which the learned Judge gave the greatest atten- 
tion, but finally dismissed the case, on the ground that it 
was done in self defense ! 



Herald Announcements. 

The announcement was made in May, 1851, that the cen- 
sus of the county had been nearly completed, and that the 
total poj)ulation would prove to be between eighteen and 
twenty thousand. 

In the same paper from which the announcement is ta- 
ken, there is a description of an unique flagstaff. It stood 
in the rear of the United States Hotel, and was a tall and 
straight pine tree which had been cleared of its limbs, in 
order to avoid the danger of its blowing over. Its height, 
one hundred and thirty-five feet, was such as to make the 



72 HISTORY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 

flag at its top visible at Shaw's Flat on one side, and Campo 
Seco on the other. 

Further down the column, Mr. Brown, agent for Rey- 
nolds & Co., is credited with saying that the mines were 
doing gloriously ; and that the amount shipped through 
that house for the week past had been eighteen thousand 
four hundred and seventy dollars. 

Mr. Holden, it said, would in a few days, have a line of 
safe and comfortable stages on the road to Stockton, to i-un 
daily and to be drawn by fast teams. 

With the same issue, the Herald reduced its subscription 
price from twenty dollars per annum, to one-half that sum. 

The next issue contained accounts of very extensive fires 
which had occurred in Stockton and San Francisco, which 
were made the occasion of an uncommon display of energy 
and enterprise by Messrs. Reynolds & Co. , whose messen- 
ger, bearing the news, rode up from Stockton to Sonora in 
nine hours ! A feat unparalleled at that time. 

This local notice, referring to a gentleman who after- 
wards became prominent, also appears: 

"James W. Coferoth. — We were gratified last Friday by 
a call from a Philadelphia editor, Mr. James W. Coffroth, 
who for about six years w.as connected with the Spwit of the 
limes, and during a part of the same time was one of the 
editors of the Nineteenth Century. He is a young gentle- 
man of promising talents and of moral worth; and we are 
glad he has come to the conclusion to make this State, and 
this county, his future home." 

In another place it casually remarked that Fuller, the 
convicted murderer of Newby, had broken jail and made 
his escape from the county. Very little concern was man- 
ifested at this and similar escapes, it being evidently looked 
upon as a matter of course, in the then condition of the 



HISTORY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 73 

jail. This is sIiDwn in the following number which an- 
nounces the escape of John Thornlej, the slayer of Palmer, 
who, while awaiting his trial, sawed off his irons and made 
his escape, being the fourth to do so in less than two weeks. 

The senior editor of the Herald described his impressions 
of a trip to San Francisco in nearly these words : 

" Passage was taken on the steamer C. M. Weber. The 
splendid carpets, lamps, lounges, looking-glasses, etc., 
made us forget we were in California, it resembled so much 
the Hudson river boats. The Weber is a new boat, and 
the largest now running to San Francisco from Stockton." 

A year previous he had made a trip in the Captain Sutter, 
and after paying thirty dollars passage money, had no 
berth, and not even room to lie upon the floor. The Jenny 
Lind ran on alternate dajs with the Sutter, the fare being 
ten dollars by either steamer. He further remarks that the 
time occupied by the trip is but twenty-three hours, of 
which nine and a half hours is taken up by stage travel to 
Stockton. 

About this time (June, 1851) Martin Arnold k Co's 
stage line was established, making daily trips between 
Sonora and Stockton, via Knight's Ferry. 

Returning from his trip, the editor stated that his errand 
below Avas for the purchase of articles for use in the Herald 
oflace. Type, he had bought, but unfortunately had not 
succeeded in finding a j)ress, so that the contemplated en- 
largement of his paper could not be effected, as the old 
historical Ramage press was not large enough to print a 
sheet exceeding the past issues in size. He further com- 
plained that although the ofiice materials had cost over 
two thousand dollars, yet it was without many of the 
articles deemed indispensable under other circumstances. 
There was, for example, no "imposing stone," and their 
" composing sticks," as well as a portion of their job type, 



74 HISTORY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 

had been whittled with a jack-knife out of pine planks. 
The editor promised that should any Atlantic printer come 
this way, fresh from a well-furnished office, he would give 
him a /ree ticket to the exhibition of a model office in the 
gold regions ! 

In May, the surprising fact was noted that not a single 
case of murder or felonious crime had happened in Sonora 
for a fortnight ! Nor w'as there, it was asserted, a single 
case of sickness prevailing. 



4 Murder of Captain SnoAV. 

On Tuesda}^ June 10, 1851, Captain George W, Snow, 
a native of Maine, aged thirty-one years, was murdered in 
Dragoon Gulch, near Shaw's Flat, by three Mexicans or 
Mexican Indians. The Mexicans had purchased a " long 
torn " from the Captain, and directed him to call the next 
morning at their encampment for his pay, this being, as 
afterwards appeared, but a ruse to secure the presence of 
their victim, the fact being well-known that he carried a 
considerable amount of money on his person. On entering 
their tent the next morning, he was assaulted and stabbed 
in two places. He hastily left the tent, calling out as he 
did so, and proceeding some fifteen yards fell from loss of 
blood. Help arriving, he was conveyed to his own quar- 
ters, where he died at the midnight following. 

It was discovered that the murderers had dug a grave in 
their cabin to receive the body of their victim, concealing 
the cavity from view with a rawhide and a blanket, and 
removing the dirt so as to avoid suspicion. 

Perhaps a more cold-blooded, premeditated, and cruel 
murder was never chronicled. The perpetrators had been 
in the emj)loy of Captain Snow for a considerable time. 



HISTORY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 75 

Immediately on the commission of the deed, the neighbor- 
ing miners turned out to search for the villains, but with- 
out success, although every exertion was made and a re- 
ward of one thousand dollars was ofifered to secure their 
apprehension, and it was not until the following Sunday 
that two of the three were found in Sonora and arrested. 

Meanwhile the funeral of the deceased took place, being 
attended by a large concourse of friends, who had been 
won by the murdered man's many excellent qualities and 
exemplary conduct. 

Immediately on their arrest,* the two suspected men, 
Antonio Cruz and Patricio Janori, were removed by their 
captors to Shaw's Flat, there to be tried by a People's 
Court. Of them, Antonio was quite young, and small of 
stature ; the other was athletic, large, and with a visage 
marred by the worst of passions. 

A court w^as organized by appointing T. P. McDonald as 
Judge, Major Solomon as Marshal, Noah Smith as Clerk, 
Van Praag as Interj)reter, Mr. Dorsey as Attorney for the 
People, and Mr. Heath as Prisoner's Counsel. The juries 
were then selected, one for each case, and the trial pro- 
ceeded in what is described as a fair and impartial manner, 
and which certainly recalled nothing of the fearful violence 
and frenz}' of other similar assemblages. Although every 
opportunity was given the accused to establish their inno- 
cence, the evidence was overwhelmingly against them, 
proving their complicity in the crime beyond a doubt. 
The deposition of the deceased showed that Antonio was 
at the table, pretending to weigh out the gold, at the 
time when the others stabbed him. Witnesses were sent 
for from Pine Log to prove for the accused that they had 
been there at the time the murder was committed ; but 
there was nothing in the story of one to show their ab- 
sence, while the other was looked upon as an accomplice, 



76 HISTORY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 

and would have been lynched himself had he not made his 
escape in good time. 

The verdicts of both juries were unanimous, and both 
prisoners were pronounced guilty. The Court then ad- 
journed, leaving the disposition of the prisoners to the 
assembled multitude. By them it was put to vote, and the 
decision was to hang the murderers forthwith, at the pre- 
cise spot where they had committed their crime, and to 
bury them in the grave they had dug for their victim ! 
Swift and terrible retribution, this, and promptly and un- 
flinchingly carried out. . 

After an hour, granted in order that a priest might ad- 
minister the solemn rites of his ofi&ce, ropes were adjusted 
about their necks and they were swung off. 

Before their execution, the younger man made a partial 
confession, acknowledging that he knew the murder was to 
be committed, but denying complicity in it. He also said 
that his companions had been concerned in the murder of 
three other Americans, of which fche}^ had escaped suspi- 
cion. 



-^ Lynching of Jim Hill, 

Scarcely had the excitement occasioned by the above oc- 
currences died away than another event of still greater 
moment hai:)pened to disturb the serenity of existence. 
This event was the hanging of a horse-thief by a mob, pre- 
ceded by his forcible rescue from Sheriff Work. More 
than one man whom the future events of history was to 
make famous participated in this affair, and the circum- 
stances beside, lend a sombre interest that must always 
keep it fresh in the minds of all to whom the historj' of the 
Southern Mines is familiar. 



HISTORY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 77 

Jim Hill, a man of well known bad character, accompan- 
ied by others of the same stripe, entered a store at Campo 
Seco and drew hia pistol, presenting it at the head of the 
proprietor, while his companions removed the iron safe 
with its contents. Going to Sonora a few days later, he 
entered a house, and meeting a man, a stranger to him, he 
snatched the latter's pistol from his belt and struck him 
with it, and then fired it at him. The man, frightened, ran 
from the house and gave the alarm, upon which the Sheriff 
arrived and found Hill concealed under a bed, from whence 
he was removed to the jail. It ,was in a Spanish house of 
ill-fame that this occurred, and the keeper was supposed to 
be an accomplice. In the morning following, a dozen men, 
among them respectable citizens of Sonora, went to the 
jail, and took from it, and from the hands of the lawfully 
constituted officers, without resistance or threats, the pris- 
oner, whom they removed to Campo Seco, there to stand 
his trial for the robbery of the store. It Avas characteristic 
of the times that a unanimous verdict of " guilty " should 
be rendered, and this without delay or the intervention of 
useless legal forms, abhorred at that date. It was equally 
a matter of course that the prisoner, accused of robbery, 
should meet the punishment due for the greater crime of 
murder. 

After six o'clock Hill was led forth to die. Addressing 
the crowd, he said some words describing his life as one of 
crime, and warning others against following his course. 
He said he had robbed, but denied that he had ever shed 
blood. He then threw himself on the mercy of the people. 

The question was then put, " Shall he be hung?" A 
large number shouted " Aye," but an equally loud shout 
was raised in the negative. Immediately hundreds drew 
their pistols, and a universal stampede resulted. Horse- 
men rode frantically through and over the crowd, and men 



78 HISTORY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 

ran for life in all directions. Order restored, several per- 
sons addressed the crowd in favor of or against the hang- 
ing, until at length Sheriff Work arrived, unattended, and 
asked to be heard. Speaking, he pledged his ovi^n life that 
if the prisoner was delivered into the hands of the civil 
authorities he should be forthcoming at the next session of 
the District Court. His words were responded to by cries 
of "Thornley!" " Thornley!" (alluding to the murderer of 
Palmer, who had broken jail). In the excitement Hill was 
thrust into a carriage, which the supporters of law and 
order had provided, and it was driven off hastily toward 
Sonora, carrying the prisoner. Sheriff Work, and another 
person, and being accompanied by several men on horse- 
back. The mob, divided against itself, did not put in 
execution any sure means of regaining control of the pris- 
oner, and the little cavalcade reached Sonora in very quick 
time. But short as the time that was occupied iu travers- 
ing the few miles separating Sonora from Campo Seco, it 
had been long enough to enable the would-be lynchers, 
gathered in the latter place, to notify the people of Sonora 
of the failure of their j)lans, and to admit of a crowd being 
collected there by means of a gong, which was carried 
through the streets by E. Linoberg and L. D. F. Edwards. 
Gathering at the sound of the instrument, in front of Hol- 
den's store, the assemblage was addressed by Mr. Edwards, 
who, in an effective speech, referred to the numerous 
escapes of prisoners from the county jail, and ended by 
proposing to take the expected malefactor as soon as he 
arrived with Work, and hang him. There was not a dis- 
senting voice. 

The crowd then prepared with weapons, to meet the 
Sheriff and prisoner at the entrance to the city. They 
speedily arrived, the attendant horsemen, as well as the 
Sheriff, with their weapons drawn. But of no avail was 



HISTORY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 79 

the show of arms. Following the wagon as it proceeded 
onward in the darkness, the crowd prepared to stop their 
progress, when the team collided with a post, and Work, 
together with the prisoner, sprang out and ran at a rapid 
pace for the jail, plunging through the arroya, while the 
pursuers refrained from firing in the fear of injuring those 
of their friends in front, all shouting, " Stop him in front, 
but don't shoot," while the Sheriff and his few remaining 
supporters charged into the crowd that encircled the jail 
and fought his way, step by step, until the door was reached. 
On the steps, six-shooter in hand, stood Colonel Cheatham. 
He cried, " Let the man go, George, or I'll shoot." Work 
was seized and overpowered. Separated from him, the 
prisoner made no resistance. In fifteen minutes he was 
hanging by the neck on an oak tree behind the El Dorado 
Hotel, in the vicinity of the jail. 



The Vigilance Committee. 

It is a common error to confound the acts of extempor- 
ized mobs, such as that concerned in the striking scenes 
last alluded to, with the more methodical acts of the Vigi- 
lance Committee. This organization was not concerned in 
any of the more important attempts at Lynch law up to 
the middle of the year 1851. Consequent upon the success 
of the Vigilantes of San Francisco in dealing out justice at 
a time when the whole city, and even the State, seemed at 
the mercy of the criminal classes, a "Committee" modeled 
on that of the Bay City was formed in nearly every town in 
the mining regions. Subsequently, nearly all acts of popu- 
lar vengeance were ascribed to these formidable organiza- 
tions, but not always correctly. 



80 HISTORY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 

The formation of the first regularly organized and per- 
manent Vigilance Committee in Tuolumne County took 
place in Sonora, Sunday noon, June 29, 1851. The imme- 
diate occasion was the attempt to burn the town, by some 
persons unknown. The attempt was unsuccessful, owing 
to the early discovery of the fire; but the recent terrible 
conflagrations in San Francisco and Stockton had so acted 
pn the feelings of the Sonorans that an organization, simi- 
lar in all respects to those of the larger cities, was effected. 
It was composed of the most orderly and respectable citi- 
zens, and the quality of zeal was certainly evidenced in the 
prosecution of its labors. For the first fortnight of its 
existence it administered upon six cases brought to its at- 
tention. An American thief was hunted up and banished 
from the Southern Mines, under penalty of death in case 
of return. A Frenchman, detected in passing counterfeit 
coin, was also banished. A Mexican, caught in the act of 
stealing, was whipped with twenty- five lashes on the bare 
back. Two other Mexicans — counterfeiters — were also 
given twenty-five lashes each. The sixth, a Mexican horse- 
thief, proved to have been a consummate villain, received 
the heavier sentence of one hundred lashes, his head was 
partially shaved, and he was banished, under penalty of 
death if retui^ning. Later in the year, owing to the greater 
efficiency of the courts, the Committee executed but few 
judgments upon criminals, but among these few were two 
that are recorded. In the first of these, the criminal, an 
ex-convict from Sydney, arrested on suspicioi of stealing a 
mule, received seventy-five lashes, had his head shaved, 
and was banished from the mines. A Mexican, for stealing 
a pistol, was sentenced to receive fifty lashes, a shaved 
head, and banishment from the mines. 

In June an affair of considerable notoriety occurred in 
Sonora. This was a conflict which took place in a dis- 



HISTORY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 81 

reputable portion of the town, and threatened to precipitate 
a general war between the American and the Mexican popu- 
lation of the city. The circumstances were these: a row 
occurred in a Spanish dwelling-house, in which one Con- 
treras took part, and was arrested, but the bystanders in- 
terfering. Marshal McFarlane was compelled to shoot one 
of them, a Chileno, who fell mortally wounded. Another 
of the same party was killed by Americans, who came up 
to assist the Marshal. 

This affair — which, considering the time it occurred in, 
was certainly not of great moment — was made the subject 
of the most absurd exaggerations by the outside press, all 
of whom united in representing Sonora to be a center of 
violence and a hotbed of hostile feeling. Their corre- 
spondents in Sonora drew powerfully on their imaginations 
to picture the town surrounded by a cordon of armed men, 
who were only able to restrain the pent up and seething 
masses from breaking into open war through the persuasive 
appearance of cocked revolvers and drawn bowie knives. 
It was probably to this spirit of wild exaggeration that 
Tuolumne owed much of its character for the wild lawless- 
ness and terrible ferocity of its inhabitants. Certain papers 
published the intelligence that on the above occasion sev- 
eral hundred extra policemen were sworn in, and who 
patrolled the city constantly, repressing attempted uprisings 
of the foreign population. The Marsha], they said, was 
shot at repeatedly, the bullets taking the buttons from his 
coat! 



Organization of Town Council, etc. 

On May 26, 1851, the Common Council of the City of 
Sonora held their first meeting. The members, all of 



82 HISTORY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 

•whom were present, were the Mayor, C. F. Dodge; H. W* 
Theall, I. P. Taney, A. F. Chatfield, L. C. Gunn, H. T. 
Fuller, R. S. Gladwin, and Abraham Tuttle. 

Their first business after organizing was the appointment 
to certain city offices, which were filled as follows: Recoraer, 
Leander Quint; Treasurer, Daniel Sayre; Assessor, Ethan 
Allen; City Attorney, L. A. Besancon; Marshal, J. F. H. 
McFarlane; Clerk, A. W. Luckett. 

These appointments were confirmed by an election held 
a few da5^s subsequently, with the exception of the Assessor, 
E, Allen, who was beaten at the polls byJ.W. Richardson. 

Among the more important business transacted by this 
Board was the passage of Ordinances numbers Fourteen 
and Fifteen, relating to gambling. The former of these 
provides that "The game known as 'French Monte' or 
' Three-card Game,' or the game of ' Loop ' or ' String 
Game,' or the game known as ' Thimbles,' or the game 
known as ' Lottery,' or the game known as ' Chinese Puz- 
zle ' or the ' Lock Game,' or any game having in its ten- 
dency deception or fraud, is hereby prohibited within the 
corporate limits of the Town of Sonora; and, on conviction 
of any person or persons of an infringement of this ordi- 
nance, the party so offending shall be fined in a sum not 
less than twenty-five or more than one hundred dollars, 
and imprisonment not more than ten days, or both fine and 
imprisonment, at the option of the Recorder. 

"It shall be the duty of the Marshal, or any Police of- 
ficer, upon information coming to them of an infringement 
of this ordinance, to arrest the person or persons so offend- 
ing, and report the sapae to the Recorder. 

" This ordinance to take effect from and after its passage. 

" Passed Apr. 5th, 1852. 

"Chas. F. Dor ge, Mayor." 



HISTORY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. bo 

Ordinance No. 15. 
[Amending Section 12 of Ordinance No. 2.] 

For every faro bank, monte bank, roulette, or other 
gaming table, or game of chance, the owner of each and 
every bank shall pay a license of fifty cents j^er day, and 
no banking game shall be opened without previously taking 
out a license for not less than one week; and any person 
opening, dealing, or taking charge of any game without 
said bank previously taking out said license, shall be 
deemed guilty of misdemeanor, and shall be fined not less 
than $25, nor more than $100, for each and every offence; 
and any owner or occupant of any house vpho shall allow 
any banking game to be opened without such license being 
taken out, shall be deemed guilty of a misdemeanor, and 
upon conviction before the Recorder shall be subject to a 
fine of not less than $25 nor more than $100 for each and 
every offence. But no license shall be issued to any person 
under the age of twenty-one years. * * * A.ny person 
putting up goods or other valuables to be disposed of by 
raffle, or by other chance, shall previously pay a license of 
one per cent, upon the value of said goods or valuables; 
and any person or persons violating this provision shall be 
deemed guilty of a misdemeanor, and shall be fined not 
less than $100 nor more than $500 for each and every 
offence. 

Ordinance No. 16 provided that all dancing saloons 
must pay a license of eighty dollars per month; and the 
previous resolutions closing such houses at midnight were 
by this ordinance repealed. 

Ordinance 17 prohibited entertainments devoted to the 
display of the human form, particnlarly the exhibitions 
known as the " Model Artists," the penalty being a fine of 
not less than five hundred dollars. 



84 HISTOEY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 

The foregoing extracts from the city ordinances will give 
to the critical mind as good an indication of the progress 
ot refinement and morality as could pages of observations. 
Not alone in the science of government was the city, and 
with it the county, advancing. For the preceding twelve 
months Sonora had been steadily on the increase in point 
of numbers and influence. Additions, generally of the 
more industrious class, had been pouring in. The people 
of the town flattered themselves that the days when des- 
peradoes, with knife and pistol, ruled the streets, had 
passed forever. 



Progress of the Town of Sonora. 

At no time in its history were so many permanent struc- 
tures being erected. Vacant lots were built upon, and the 
sound of the hammer and saw were heard in all parts of 
the city. 

One of the most notable structures built this season 
(the spring of 1852), was a large and substantial frame 
building at the corner of Taney and Washington streets, 
in which Messrs. Yaney and Bertine established themselves 
as bankers. Within the building was a very large safe — 
an article so ponderous as to require a \erj considerable 
outlay of time and money to transport from San Francisco. 
This safe was regarded as a nine days' wonder by the hardy 
gold-seekers. 

Previous to the establishment of the house of Yaney & 
Bertine, three firms, Messrs. Eeynoids, Todd & Co., Adams 
& Co., and Wm. Hammond & Co., existed. The former 
firm have the credit of being the original bankers and 
express men of Sonora, having commenced their operations 
in May, 1850, as Keynolds & Co. Their business had been 



HISTORY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 85 

very extensive as eai-lj' as the fall of 1850, when the firms of 
Eeynolds & Co. and Todd & Co. were consolidated, and in 
1852 the special deposits reached the amount of one hun- 
dred and eighty thousand dollars. The firm of Adams & 
Co. occupied, at the latter date, a neat building on Wash- 
ington street, in which was contained a large fire-proof 
vault, built of stone and cement, with double doors of 
boiler iron, and within this fire and thief-proof cavern were 
two large iron safes of the most approved construction. 
Dr. J. Steinberger remained as agent in charge until 1852, 
when he was succeeded in his duties by Mr. A. G. Rich- 
ardson. 

Wm. Hammond & Co. began business in Sonora in No- 
vember or December, 1851, in general banking and the 
purchase of gold dust. Their office was in the first 
story of the adobe building known as Maspnic Hall. 

It may here be proper to remark that this building, cele- 
brated in the annals of Sonora, was commenced on June 
24, 1851, the Masonic Order laying the corner stone 
with appropriate ceremonies. The occasion was one long 
remembered in Tuolumne. Among the Masons who took 
part in the observances of that day were Charles M. Rad- 
cliff (Master of Ceremonies,) Judge Tuttle, E. Linoberg, 
Mayor Dodge, A. F. Chatfield, Captain Tormey, William 
Perkins (Orator of the Day,) W. Vyse, Major Sullivan and 
others. 

After a considerable delay, the building was finally com- 
pleted and occupied; but its life tenure was short. The 
inside was completely burned out by the fire of June 18. 
The rains of the following winter so acted upon the adobe 
walls remaining, that the whole structure became unsafe, 
and had to be propped up. After remaining in this empty 
and forlorn condition for some time, it finally fell in, and 
remained a wreck until the following July, when the 



86 HISTOBY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 

county authorities gained control of it by lease, and en- 
tered into a contract with J. M. Huntington for its repair, 
at a cost not exceeding two thousand dollars. It was the 
intention to devote it to the use of the Courts, there being 
at that time no suitable rooms for that purpose. Whether 
the money was expended on the building does not ap- 
pear, but shortly after the Supervisors are found to have 
made other arrangements, and the presumption is that the 
contract with Mr. Huntington was not fulfilled. The 
building stood on the northeast corner of Church and 
Washington streets. 



Great Fire in '52. 

The fire of June 18, above referred to, was one of the 
most serious calamities to which Sonora was ever exposed. 
It began at one o'clock in the morning, in a building 
called the "Hotel de France," situated on the plaza, and 
facing up Washington street. It was occui)ied by Mme. 
Landreau. From thence it spread northwards, destroying 
the block situated in the center of Washington street, and 
beginning at a point about midway between the present lo- 
cations of O'Brien's store and Boyd's livery stable. The 
streets separated by this block were known as East Wash- 
ington and West Washington streets. The southernmost 
building which fell a prey to the flames was the Masonic 
Hall, already spoken of. The wind blowing northward, 
the fire steadily progressed in that direction, burning 
nearly every building on Washington street to its head, 
where the Episcopal Church now stands, and even here the 
flames were not stayed, but continued as far as the Bar- 
num House, in the northern part of the city, and fully a 
half mile from the starting point. 

Thus nearly every building in town was burned, only 



HISTORY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 87 

such scattered dwellings as were far removed from the fire 
having been saved. Many of the structures swept away 
cost from ten to twenty thousand dollars each, and the 
total loss was said to exceed three-quarters of a million 
dollars. 

Among the buildings saved were the Rev. Mr. Deal's new 
Methodist Episcopal Church, and Rev. W. H. Long's Wes- 
leyan Chapel. The former was used for a short time after 
the fire as a Postoffice. 

The loss of one life only is recorded. The unfortunate 
man was a Swiss, named Mollier, and he met his fate in 
the building in which the fire started. 

Immediately following the extinguishment of the fire, 
a new source of trouble arose. This was the attempt of 
certain parties to "jump" the land on which the houses had 
stood; but the attempt was frustrated by the interposition 
of an armed guard, which was organized to meet such pro- 
ceedings. 

Reliable estimates, published a week after the fire, when 
the excitement and consequent exaggeration had cooled, 
placed the loss at seven hundred and seventy-eight 
thousand dollars. Of this enormous sum, the following- 
named persons or companies lost the amounts set opposite 
their respective names: 

<Peter Mehen $20,000 

Leander Quint 6,000 

E. Richards 6,000 

Judge Tuttle 7,000 

Theall, Perkins & Co 30,000 

J. M. Huntington 23,000 

L. C. Gunn 6,000 

Bemis 30,000 

W. C. Bennett 12,000 

Street & Co 8,000 

G. A. Johnson 8,000 



88 HISTORY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 

Caruthers ". 12,000 

Long Tom Saloon 15,000 

F. G. Appleton & Co 5,000 

Hotel de France 3,000 

G. Aitkin 5,000 

Major Ball 20,000 

E. Linoberg 30,000 

Heslep, Yaney *& Co 20,000 

Mintzer & Co 10,000 

C. F. Dodge 20,000 

Joshua Holden 10,000 

Alonzo Green 40,000 

B. Ford & Co 10,000 

M. Planel 10,000 

J. H. Ward 40,000 

Masonic Hall 10,000 

Lone Star 10,000 

Huntington, Martin & Dwindle 11,000 

M. Valleau 9,000 

French Restaurant 4,000 

The above were the principal losers only, the remainder 
of the gross amount being made up of losses ranging from 
a few hundreds to five thousand dollars. 

The day following the fire, a public meeting was held 
in Sonora in reference to the calamity, at which Mr. S. H. 
Dwindle was called to the chair, and a committee was or- 
ganized to draft resolutions, directed toward a better pro- 
tection of the city in case of a similar danger. This com- 
mittee, consisting of Messrs. Huntington, Yaney, Green, 
Gunn and C. F. Dodge, presented resolutions proclaiming 
the expediency of widening the streets and laying them 
out at right angles; also, that a police force be appointed 
in the temporary emergency. 

These resolutions were acted upon by the authorities, 
and the center block, lying in the middle of Washington 



HISTORY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. «» 

street, was abolished, and that street widened to its full 
width of eighty feet. The citizens unanimously accepted 
the new order of things, and commenced the task of re- 
building in a most thorough manner. Brick became the 
favorite material for building, and the brickmakers began 
to ply their vocation actively. Keal estate, it was said, 
had risen, within -a few days, to a greater value than pre- 
vious to the fire. Mr. Linoberg received an offer of one 
hundred and twenty dollars per front foot for his lot, 
corner of Linoberg and Washington streets, and Mr. 
Holden refused five thousand dollars for his hotel site, pre- 
ferring to erect thereon a large frame hotel and saloon. 
Adams & Co., whose building was destroyed among the 
rest, built a much finer one on the same lot, containing a 
vault constructed of adobes, the walls of which were 
three feet in thickness, and the apartment within large 
enough to contain several safes. 

The establishment of the first school in Sonora, and in 
fact the first in the county as far as is known, took place 
during the week in which the fire occurred. The precep- 
tress was a Miss Hawkhurst, a lady eminently adapted to 
the art of instructing the youthful mind, if the laudatory 
notices of the Herald may be taken as evidence. Possibly, 
however, the Herald man was susceptible, and the lady's 
charms were such as to obscure his judgment. Be that as 
it may, the school was quite a success, though its privileges 
were extended to but few at the beginning, the pupils num- 
bering but eighteen or twenty, the most of whom were 
Americans, and between the ages of four and ten. 

It was mentioned that the new M. E. Church escaped 
destruction in the great fire. This building stood on Yaney 
street, in the rear of Yaney & Bertine's Banking House. 
It was decidedly the finest church building in the county, 
though costing but the comparatively small sum of thirty- 
three hundred dollars. The dimensions were thirty-five by 



90 HISTORY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 

forty feet, and ninety feet from the ground to the top of 
the spire. The contractor, Mr. George Fairfield, com- 
pleted the work in twelve days. 

A reference to the advertising columns of the Herald of 
that time, reveals many things that must be of interest. In 
one place Mrs. Sharp respectfully informs the parents and 
guardians of the Sonora youth that she intends opening a 
school for young ladies about the first of July, Having 
been engaged as governess in leading families in Europe, 
she flatters herself that she is competent to perform the 
task that she proposes. In addition, she will feel happy 
to form a class of grown-up ladies whose early education 
has been neglected, that they may become possessed of a 
portion of that multifarious learning that the reader must 
have supposed Madame Sharp imbued with. Her terms 
were eminently reasonable, board per month, with tuition 
in all the branches of a sound English education, being 
only twenty-five dollars, while, in addition, music, French, 
dancing, washing, and day scholars are taught or dealt 
with at correspondingly low rates. But whether unforseen 
circumstances prevented, or the good lady concluded that 
she was giving too much for a little money, the school, it 
is to be presumed, was never commenced, for there is no 
evidence to the contrary. 

Three book stores — G. S, Wells', Mintzer & Co.'s, and B. 
B. Sweetland's (" Miners' Book Store "). advertise their 
wares. Messrs. Huntington, Martin & Dwindle maintained 
an "ad." asserting their claims as att&r'^eys at law, the 
latter member of the firm being also a Notary Public. They 
also advertised " Money to loan, in sums to suit borrowers. " 

Mr. C. A. Todd advertised that he had purchased the 
interest and good will of his former partners in Keynolds 
& Co.'s Express and Banking House, and would carry on 
the same without interruption, the ojfice being removed to 
the old Tuolumne House. 



HISTORY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 91 

The American Bath House, on Washington street, at the 
Plaza, and adjoining Theall, Perkins & Co.'s store; Plump's 
Coifee House, where ice-cream was to be had; William 
Stone's splendid circus, composed of the greatest living 
artists — in fact, the dower of the equestrian school; and 
numerous other individuals and institutions advertised 
themselves liberall}^ in the Herald. 

Six banking houses, including Adams & Co. and Todd 
<& Co., did business in Sonora at that time — a fact that seems 
the more extraordinary when it is compared with the pres- 
ent state of finance. The contrast extends into all matters, 
of course, but in one particular is most noticeable to the 
eye of a newspaper man. No weekly four-page paper of 
limited circulation ever possessed a better advertising 
patronage than did the Sonora Herald. Its weekly receipts 
from that source could not have averaged much less than 
two hundred dollars. The Herald, by its respectable moral 
tone, by the fullness and completeness of its various de- 
partments, and by the vigor, energy and courage of its 
conductors, commanded success and achieved it. There 
was not at that time, nor has there since been, published 
in California a more respectable weekly newspaper. Its 
editorials were terse and vigorous, and always up with the 
times. They were such as to furnish an exponent of the 
feelings of society in general on all prominent topics. This 
is fully shown in the editor's comments on the Chinese 
question, in 1852, when that topic was for the first time 
agitated. It is surprising to the reader of the present day 
to observe how little progress has been made in considering 
that question. The subject remains, morally, in the same 
light in which it was then regarded. To prove this, let a 
few sentences be quoted: 

* * * * " They prove convincingly, if proof were 
needed, that the Chinese have been hardly and harshly 



92 HISTORY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 

treated. Coaxed and invited hither by one class of Ameri- 
cans, they have been driven about and maltreated by an- 
other class. Taxed by the Legislature, in return for that 
protection which it well knew it could not honestly guar- 
antee, they have been driven back by miners, whose voices 
spoke out long ago against any competition with inferior 
labor, =1= * * Who, then, are to blame in this matter, 
the miners, or their would-be masters, the merchants ? * 
* * The merchant clique of San Francisco * * thus 
writes: ' The immigration of the Chinese to this country is 
productwe of great jjrofit to us, and we believe is of great 
benefit to the mining and agricultural interests of the State.' 
Granted, as far as the profit is concerned; granted by us, 
and very frankly avowed by those who profit by it. The 
m-erchant memorialists will pardon us poor miners if we 
presume to have our own ideas about our own peculiar in- 
terests. We have too long served as shuttlecocks, to be 
bandied about from side to side, the sport and prey of. 
sharper legislators and reckless speculators; we have too 
long served as cat's paws, by which the merchants and 
bankers have drawn the golden store out of the fire. * * 
" To say that the Chinese will permanently settle in, im- 
prove and populate this country, does not mend the matter. 
It is but a mere assertion, anyhow. That a country con- 
taining so immense a mass of human beings could speedily 
pojjulate this country, none can doubt. But what we want 
is not mere population; this were worse than useless, if it 
were not a healthy increase. * * * y^q want a perma- 
nent population; but we also want a free, intelligent, en- 
lightened one. We want a population that speaks our lan- 
guage, under?tands and appreciates our laws, sympathizes 
with the expansive spirit of our people, harmonizes with 
and readily assimilates to us. We want a population each 
one of whom is capable of sitting on a jury, of depositing 



HISTORY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 93 

a ballot, of understanding the drift of a resolution, the 
prayer of a petition. Such a population the Chinese can 
not be. Why, then, should we commit political suicide, 
because our fathers made our country a refuge for the op- 
pressed ? In plainer and more unmistakable words, why 
should we ruin our rising country by diluting its already 
adulterated population with the admixture of a strange and 
an inferior race, merely because certain merchants find it 
productive of ' great profit to them ?' " 

Never were more pointed words applied to this question, 
which has remained an unsettled problem to this day. 
The ideas above advanced contain all, or nearly all, of 
argument that has been promulgated on that side. Nor, 
on the other hand, have the supporters of Chinese immi- 
gration got beyond the idea of self-interest in their own 
arguments. So that the whole subject may be said to be 
in the same state in which it existed thirt}^ years since. 



Diversions of the Early Miner. 

By this date, a noticeable progress in refinement over 
the rough and reckless previous years had become ap- 
parent. As already mentioned, Sonora had taken the 
initiative in establishing schools and places of worship. 
ContemiDoraneously with these came the institution of 
theatrical exhibitions, which at first were, as befitted the 
mixed tastes of the earlier inhabitants, not of the highest 
order. It has been seen that the Town Council of Sonora 
was impelled to prohibit, by ordinance, the lewd ex- 
hibtions called "model artist shows." Bull fights, intro- 
duced by the Mexican inhabitants, had previously been a 
recognized means of diversion — more particularly, it was 



94 HISTORY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 

the regular source of amusement for beguiling the time 
on Sunday; but the sport, once popular, by the year 1852 
had become degraded in the popular estimation, so much 
so that the newspapers published at that time refused to 
give their columns to its description. In consequence, 
there is difficulty in arriving at facts concerning this 
amusement. "When it began, and to how late a date the 
practice continued, are details shrouded in obscurity. 
Good fortune has, notwithstanding, preserved this relation 
of a typical combat which occurred near the sjDot where 
Wolf ling's slaughter-house now stands: In 1850, Captain 
Gridley had advertised himself as being in possession of 
two bears, which he proposed, on a certain day, to pit 
against a long-horned Mexican bull, or, more properly, a 
steer, that was owned by another party. This, of course, 
was not exactly a bull fight, but was a contest jDerhaps 
more to the taste of such as chose to pay their dollar 
to behold, than the real simon-pure bull fight would have 
been. 

At the appointed hour, the corral was surrounded by an 
immense crowd, standing on tiptoe and craning their 
necks to view the promised sensation. The bears, being 
let into the enclosure, excited a feeling of disappointment 
from their diminutive size, and the outcome showed that 
they were utterly unable to cope with their active and pow- 
erful antagonist. On the first charge of the excited steer, 
goaded to desperation by the shouts of the bystanders, the 
smaller of his two antagonists was toppled over instantly, 
rolling under the legs of the steer. The other, daunted 
by the onset, sought to escape by climbing the fence, 
despite the chain by which he was fixed to a stake in the 
corral. The bystanders, giving ground before the array of 
teeth and claws, fell over each other in confusion. On 
order being restored, it was found that Bruin had been 



HISTOKY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 95 

shot and partially disabled. Thereon a quarrel arose with 
the proprietor, who insisted that the crowd should pay him 
for the damage done to his property. This was not acceded 
to, but a collection of a few dollars was made up on his 
promise to let the fight go on. 

Three times more the animals were brought or driven in 
contact, each time resulting in a victorious charge by the 
hoofed quadruped that scattered his enemies in utter de- 
moralization, and then the fight was declared "off," the 
owner of the steer offering to match his animal against five 
groivn-np grizzlies. As there were no takers, one must 
conclude that the doughty bovine had achieved a repu- 
tation as invincible, or that grizzly bears were not easily 
procurable in quantity. 

Having introduced this circumstance to show the nature 
of the amusements indulged in in 1850, it will be proper 
now, in support of the assertion that the people were pro- 
gressing in refinement, to speak of their amusements and 
habits two years later. 

In the first place, the various religious organizations 
thus far formed had met with a considerable degree of 
success. Public enthusiasm had not yet been awakened in 
any great degree upon that subject, nor, it may be added, is 
it noticeable at this day; but many earnest men had com- 
menced the move in the direction of morality and sobriety, 
by building churches, where the word of God might be 
heard. In connection with this, a movement was put on 
foot to effect a more marked observance of the Sabbath as 
a day of rest, instead of, as before, one of recreation and 
commercial dealings. That this effort was attended with 
pronounced results, is not very likely; but there is no 
doubt that the seed sown then did not all fall on barren 
soil. 



96 HISTORY OF TUOI^UMNE COUNTY. 

Not all of the God-fearing men who ministered in ''Old 
Tuolumne" found their paths strewn with roses. Many- 
were compelled to resign their charges, and the few who 
upheld their crosses found ample opportunity to bear them 
with all the pain and trouble that is said to deserve so 
•well of their Divine Master. 

To return to the subject of amusements : In 1852 Messrs. 
Eichardson and Imbrie built a theater in Campo Seco, 
which was one of the earliest structures of the kind in the 
county. Like most buildings of that date, it was built of 
wood, boarded up at the sides, and covered with canvas. 
It was, in fact, hardly more than a tent. In the front por- 
tion of the building was the familiar bar. In this primi- 
tive structure the Chapman Family held forth for many 
nights, playing the initial engagement. These actofs seem 
to have had an exceedingly successful season in the mines, 
playing in all the camps which contained any facilities for 
such^erformances, or men enough to compose an audience. 
'TEvery man went to hear them, and very possibly no actors, 
" star " or otherwise, ever met the expectations of their 
audiences more fully; and certainly no audiences ever rose 
to the demands of the jDerformers with such unanimity — 
such excess of satisfaction, and ebullition of feeling — as 
theirs. At Columbia the stage was covered with buckskin 
purses, each containing what the generous givers thought 
a proper testimonial of their appreciation. Discovering, 
however, that there was not noise enough about it to fully 
emphasize their feelings, the boys took to throwing silver 
pieces, and there was, it was said, an immediate scarcity of 
these coins, which, by the way, had not long been in circu- 
lation in the mines. Enthusiastic, red-shirted miners 
escorted the actors to and from the theater, and even in- 
truded their effusive good wishes into the privacy of the 
strangers' apartments. The force of generous sympathy 
could go no further than it did here. 






'Qy>,r 




HISTORY OP TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 97 

In Sonora the Chapmans met with almost equal success. 
Their exhibitions were given in a small hall in the rear of, 
and connected with Ward's saloon. A procession of over 
a thousand miners, it is said, acted as escort on their jour- 
ney between Columbia and the neighboring city. 

On the opening night in Sonora a bill was given, of 
which the following is a reproduction : 

PHCENIX THEATER, 

SONORA. 

Grand Opening on New Years' Night ! 

This new and beautiful Theater, attached to Ward's 
Saloon, will be opened on the above night, with the fol- 
lowing powerful company : 

Miss Caroline Chapman, from Burton's Theater, New 
York. 

Mrs. Hamilton, also from Burton's Theater. 

Mrs. BuRRiLL, from the American Theater, San Francisco. 

Mrs. Campbell, from the American Theater, Sacramento. 

Mr. W. B. Chapman, ^from the Broadway Theater, New 
York. 

Mr. T. S. Campbell, Acting Manager. 

Mr. Hamilton, from Burton's Theater, New York. 

Mr. Thompson, from the National Theater, New York. 

Messrs. G-. W. Daniels and McCabe, Stage Managers ; 
Byers, T. C. Green, Piper and Rowe. 

A full orchestra has been provided, of acknowledged 
musical talent. 

An Opening Address, written by a Gentleman of this 
city, will be delivered by MISS CAROLINE CHAPMAN 



98 HISTORY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 

To be followed by the celebrated comedy, in three acts, 

of 

THE SERIOUS FAMILY, 

After which, 

Dancing and Singing. 

To conclude with the Favorite Farce of the 

ROUGH DIAMOND ! 

Full particulars in small bills. 

Peices of Admission. — Parquette, $1 ; Dress Circle, $2. 

j^^Doors open at ^ past 6, and the curtain will rise at 
7 o'clock. 

This bill was continued for eight nights. Subsequently 
the comedy "Paul Pry" was substituted for a portion of 
the bill. Later, "She Stoops to Conquer," and "The 
Honeymoon,', were produced. 

Previous to the arrival of the Chapmans, a troupe of 
ballad singers, styling themselves the " Alleghanians," had 
visited the mines. Their performances were much attended, 
their songs being mostly of the pathetic, homelike sort of 
music that might be supposed to prove interesting and cap- 
tivating to a population so far separated from their former 
associations. At Sonora the Methodist E^Discopal Church 
was placed at their service, and was filled repeatedly. The 
foremost singer, Miss Goodenow, on the occasion of her 
benefit was enthusiastically received by the citizens, four of 
whom, Messrs. Bertine, Todd, Gower and Satrustegui, 
each purchased one hundred dollars' worth of tickets, thus 
almost rivaling Genin, the hatter, of Jenny Lind celebrity. 



HISTORY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 99 

vi Settlement of Columbia. 

• Columbia, as already noted, sprang into existence in the 
month of March, 1850. New, and very rich deep diggings 
were struck there, together with very extensive, though 
poorer, surface deposits; and the people from surrounding 
camps and elsewhere, flocked there in great numbers. At 
once the place (first called American Camp, and afterwards 
Columbia) contained several thousand inhabitants, and the 
greatest success was achieved in mining, although by the 
most primitive means. With the giving out of the water, 
however, the population as rapidly fell off to a score, more 
or less, who alone remained of all the vast multitude. 

The winter of 1850-51 set in with the most sanguine ex- 
pectations, but the miners left shared in the general disap- 
pointment at the insufficient fall of rain, scarcely enough 
falling to enable the ground to be prospected. Still, some 
made wages by carrying their dirt a long distance to water. 
The general success of these opened the eyes of the people 
of the su.rrounding camps to the possibilities thus indicated, 
and their attention was drawn also to the extent of these 
grounds. It was seen that there was not a foot of ground 
upon the immense flat, from Santiago Flat to Tim's Sj)rings, 
and from Shaw's Flat to the hill overhanging the Stanis- 
laus, but was rich enough to pay for working, if water 
could be obtained for that purpose ; and that there were 
hundreds of ravines and gulches that contained gold. 

These tremendous resources, richer in kind than else- 
where found upon the earth's surface, drew again the 
swarms of people who were to make Columbia the typical 
placer mining camp of the world. 

From the latest date mentioned, the growth of the camp 
was steady and permanent. From the obscure location, 
containing perhaps half a hundred miners, who washed a 



100 HISTORY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 

limited amount of dirt in water brought in barrels, or 
laboriously carried the gravel to the distant springs, the 
town grew by successiye additions from every camp and 
from every country. With them came artificial wants. The 
rude and primitive modes of mining would no longer 
answer. The winter rains could not be depended on, yet 
were taken advantage of to the utmost extent. At Christ- 
mas time in '51, a stream, fed only by the rains, was flow- 
ing through the streets of Columbia. Fifty "toms " inter- 
cepted its progress, and not a drop of the precious fluid 
but was made to do its work over and again, in separating 
the yellow particles from the gravel. 

But such resources as the temporary streams, supplied 
from the clouds, were necessarily of small avail in the 
business of gold extraction, and so a move was made to 
speedily introduce an abundant and steady supply of water. 
The project was no less than turning a branch of the Stan- 
islaus River into the table land in the vicinity of the town. 

"With men of that day, to plan was to act, and the great 
work was commenced by the incorporation of the "Tuol- 
umne County Water Company," and the construction of a 
suitable ditch, or race, was immediately begun. 

Joseph Dance, Esq., was chosen President of the new 
company, and General Benard its Engineer. On July 1, 
1851, the work was commenced at Summit Pass. Though 
financially embarrassed, the company persevered, and 
finally help was given by D. O. Mills & Co., bankers at 
Sacramento, who afterwards established a branch house at 
Columbia. 

The company turned the water of Five Mile Creek into 
Columbia on the 1st day of May, 1852, and in August of 
that year the ditch was completed to the South Fork of the 
Stanislaus. 



HISTORY OF TDOLUMNE COUNTY. 101 

During the succeeding autumn, the town site was laid 
out, and building proceeded with great rapidity. Split 
boards were the favorite material used in the construction 
of the simple houses of that date, and their consequently 
easy and ready combustibility proved the ruin of the town 
on more than one subsequent occasion. 

On the 25th day of October, 1851, the first number of a 
weekly newspaper, entitled the Columbia Star, was issued 
from the press. It was published and edited by W. Gore, 
Esq., and, as before mentioned, was printed on the old 
Ramage press used by the Sonora Herald in its first few 
issues, and which was destroyed by a mob when the Star 
suspended publication after its fifth number had been 
printed. The first copy struck off was purchased by Mrs. 
De Noielle for an "ounce." The purchaser, by the way, 
was the first white woman who came to Columbia, and the 
second in the county. 

In November, 1852, the Columbia Gazette, a weekly 
newspaper, was established by Colonel Falconer. This 
sheet proved more fortunate than its predecessor, it meet- 
ing with a large measure of success, and continuing until 
November 10, 1855, when it was merged into the Columbia 
Gazette and Southern Mines Advertiser. After the first year 
of its existence. Colonel Falconer sold his interest to 
Messrs. John Dachow and T. M. Yancey, Mr. Duchow be- 
coming the editor. Mr. Yancey afterwards disposed of his 
share to R. J. Steele. 

The Gazette was a four-page publication, a trifle smaller 
than the Sonora Herald. It always pursued a consistent 
course, laboring hard for the welfare of Columbia, and 
apparently receiving the efficient support that its conduct 
merited. 

In the latter part of 1852, the following business houses 
and places of entertainment existed: 



102 HISTORY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 

21 Produce and grocery stores. 

30 Saloons, groceries and restaurants. 

17 Dry goods and produce stores. 

4 Hotels. 

7 Boarding-houses. 

4 Banking and exchange offices. 
3 Express offices. 

2 Book and stationery stores. 

5 Doctors' offices. 
5 Law offices. 

3 Tobacconists. 

7 Bakeries. 

1 Tin shop. 

2 Barber shoj^s. 

3 Meat markets. 

3 Blacksmith shops. 

8 Carpenter shops. 

3 Silver-smith shops. 

1 Printing office. 
3 Drug stores. 

2 Wagon-maker shops. 

3 Laundries. 

4 Livery stables. 
1 Beading room. 
1 Brewery. 

1 Ground coffee depot. 
1 Daguerreotype room. 
1 Boot and shoe shop. 
1 Wine and liquor store. 
1 Fruit and confectionery store. 
1 Mexican fandango house. 
Total— 150. 
In addition to these, there was a large hall (previously 
spoken of), usedfor theatrical exhibitions, and similar pur- 



HISTOKY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 103 

poses; an amphitheater, for bull and bear fights; a church, 
with regular preaching every Sabbath; a Sunday School, 
which was well attended; a Masonic Lodge; a Division of 
the Sons of Temperance, and a Vocal Music Society. 

Besides all these, which were immedately in town, the 
suburbs contained many shops, taverns and trading houses. 
The Tuolumne County Water Company had an extensive 
lumber yard in the vicinity, around which a little village 
grew up. They also had an office in Columbia for the 
transaction of business. 

In November, '52, a post-office was established at Colum- 
bia, and Mr. A. A. Hunnewell was appointed Postmaster, 
so from that time on the town has enjoyed equal mail facil- 
ities with the most favored camps. 

The town was, with wise forethought, laid out in rec- 
tangular blocks, separated by streets of commensurate 
width. The names of the principal streets, which ran 
north and south, commencing with the most westerly, 
were — Silver, Gold, Broadway, Main and Columbia streetsi. 
Those leading at right angles to those already named, 
were — Washington (nearest to Main Gulch), Fulton, State, 
Jackson and Pacific streets. 

From the Gazelle, of January 22, 1853, the following 
scraps of mining news are copied, in order to show the 
general status of that branch of industry at a time when 
Columbia and "vicinity were at a high pitch of prosperity: 

"Although we have not visited many of the camj)S this 
week, yet we are pleased to learn that the mines generally 
are doing better than at any time since last summer. 
Columbia Gulch is crowded with " toms," and the men in 
many of the claims are making wages." 

" The Coyote Diggings, on the hill between Columbia 
and Gold Springs, are paying, in many places, as high as 
fifty and one hundred dollars per day to the man. New 



104 HISTORY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 

holes are sunk, and new strikes are made almost daily. 
Hundreds, however, sink holes and find nothing, as the 
course of the leads is as hard to find out as it is to discover 
the true feelings and sentiments of a heartless coquette; 
still the miners work ahead as if they expected to find 
thousands of dollars of the precious metal in every hole 
they sink." 

" In Hatch's garden they are sinking holes in every di- 
rection, which in a few cases pay well. " 

"At Gold Springs, where thousands of dollars were carted 
and washed out previous to the rainy season, many of the 
miners are discovering better pay dirt under the claims that 
had been previously worked out." 

" On Shaw's Flat, many of the miners are making good 
wages, and, as at every other place, hundreds are doing 
little or nothing." 

*' At Springfield, Santiago, Brown's Flat, Summit Pass, 
Yankee Hill, and the various gulches around Columbia, 
many of the claims are paying astonishingly, and the 
deeper the minersfwork down, in many cases, the richer 
they find the dirt." 

"On Experimental Gulch, although it was supposed to 
have been worked out last season, many of the miners are 
making money. On a claim owned by Messrs. Beals & 
Hussey, one piece was taken out, last week, which weighed 
four and a half ounces; and another was found the same 
week weighing over two ounces. This claim pays ten 
dollars a day to the man." 

" Although many of the miners are doing well, yet there 
are hundreds who work equally hard and live as frugal and 
economical as men can well live, that are not clearing ex- 
penses." 

The Gazette concludes with the following sage remarks, 
which, by the way, have proved applicable through all the 



HISTORY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 105 

succeeding years since they were penned, and even now 
would prove worthy of consideration : 

" If miners would content themselves and remain on a 
claim, even if it did not pay them more than four or five 
dollars per day, the chances are in favor of their doing 
better than by wandering from place to place and spending 
all they have made, prospecting. How many thousands 
would now have their piles, and be ready to leave the mines, 
had they contented themselves to work on the first claims 
they located. Every miner who came to this country in 
*49 or '50 can now look back and see hundreds of instances 
where he could have made a fortune, if he had contented 
himself to remain where he was, instead of going in search 
of 'Golden Lakes' and 'Golden Blu£fs.' " 

The same paper mentions that although the prices of 
provisions were suffering a swift decline, still that flour was 
selling at thirty-five cents per pound, with an ample stock 
on hand. Beef, which was scarce, commanded thirty-seven 
and a half cents. Bacon was sixty cent^, and butter and 
candles one dollar per pound. It is mentioned that a 
dealer purchased in Stockton twelve hundred dollars' worth 
of provisions, the transportation of which to Columbia cost 
him nine hundred, with freight at thirty cents per pound. 
This, it should be remembered, was in the midst of a very 
severe winter. 

In February, business was said to be rapidly improving. 
" The four-horse coach makes three or four trips daily 
between Columbia and Sonora, and is generally crowded 
with passengers." 

"Provisions are still declining, flour being plenty at 18 
to 20 cents; pork, 50; bacon, 50; hams, 45; lard, 50; 
sugar, 20 ; coffee, 30 ; butter, 75 ; cheese, 33 ; rice, 30 
beans, 20 ; potatoes, 20 ; barley, 14 ; dried apples and 



106 HISTORY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY, 

peaches, 25; molasses, $2 per gallon; liquors, $1.50 to $5; 
nails, 25 to 30 cents per lb. " 

" Our toAvn is thronged with miners every night, and we 
have never seen so much quiet and good order. The 
gambling houses are doing but little. The fandango 
houses still gather crowds of the boys who are fond of 
' tripping the light fantastic toe.' " 

" The cause of temperance is marching on with giant 
strides, between forty and fifty of our best citizens have 
taken the pledge during the week." 

The first railroad ' boom ' that ever afi^ected the people of 
Tuolumne is thus noted in the Gazette : 

* * * " The building of a railroad from Stockton to 
the Southern mines has now become a fixed fact. A com- 
pany of the right character has been formed, a site for a 
town at the terminus has been purchased, and the initia- 
tory steps will soon be entered into. This is a work of in- 
calculable importance to the people of Tuolumne county, 
and we wish it from all our heart, ' good speed.' " 

It is unnecessary to state that this railroad was not com- 
pleted, but the passage will serve to illustrate the child- 
like confidence that the inhabitants of this county have 
ever manifested in the immediate advent of the iron horse. 

The New England Water Comj)any, it seems, from the 
pages of the Gazette, had conveyed the waters of a spring, 
distant one mile from town, through wooden pipes under- 
ground, to a reservoir containing four thousand gallons. 
Thence it was taken in water-carts throughout the town, 
supplying families at the then cheap rate of five cents per 
bucketful. 

The enterprise was said to pay extremely well, and later, 
iron pipes were laid down, capable of supplying a town of 
twenty thousand inhabitants. By the year 1856, hydrants 
connecting with these pipes had been put in position, from 



HISTORY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 107 

■which streams could be thrown eighty feet high, affording 
a great safeguard against fire. 

An additional lot of mining notes appeared in the issue 
of February 12, by which it is learned that several good 
strikes were made on the hill east of Columbia, just before 
that date, furnishing some of the richest " coyote " diggings 
yet found. That French Gulch was paying extremely well, 
George Camp & Co. taking out two ounces per day to the 
man. In Shaw's Flat many were engaged in working the 
clay, from which they made good wages. One company of 
five were "puddling," and taking out one and a half pounds 
per day. 

The Jamestown miners were averaging from four to six 
dollars per day, of which they paid one dollar for water. 

At Montezuma the daily production was from five to ten 
dollars per diem. 

" It will be seen from our mining news that immense 
sums of gold are being taken out in this county daily, and 
were all doing as well as the lucky few whose claims pay so 
well, the value of gold would inevitably depreciate ; but 
the tale is not finished, and we regret to state that here, as 
in the gold mines of every county in California, as well as 
Australia and elsewhere, hundreds and thousands are not 
making one dollar clear." 

Another issue gives as mining intelligence these state- 
ments : 

'• Santiago. — The claims at and around this camp are 
still paying well. Connor & ^o., a day or two since, took 
out a lump weighing sixteen ounces. The same day they 
made five hundred dollars, including the lump. On 
Wednesday last, Lincoln & Co. found a beautiful specimen 
of pure gold, which weighed twelve ounces and eight dol- 
lars. The same day they took out eight ounces of fine gold 
from the same claim. This claim, now worked to a depth 



108 HISTORY OF TCOLUMNE COUNTY. 

of forty feet, has paid one ounce per day to the man, for 
several months past." 

" Yankee Hill. — On Sunday last, three Frenchmen 
found a lump of gold weighing 249 ounces, and valued at 
$3,600. This claim is in a small gulch, about one mile 
'from Columbia, and was offered for sale but three days 
before for one ounce." 

" Experimental Gulch still pays high wages. In an old 
claim, once thought to be worked out, five or six French- 
men, after four or five weeks' work, divided $10,500 be- 
tween them as their net proceeds. So much for perse- 
verance." 

"Between Loring's Garden and Gold Springs several 
claims are paying well. From one of them ten ounces of 
gold was taken on Thursday last, and from one to three 
ounces per man, daily." 

"Big Strike. — Two Mexicans, Gregorio Contrares and 
his partner, commenced sinking a hole on Wednesday last, 
below Campo Seco, on the other side of Sullivan's Gulch 
near Page's Ranch, and struck a pocket from which they 
took out, by 12 o'clock on Thursday, $5,700 ; one piece 
of which weighed eight pounds. In one hour they washed 
out two hundred ounces in their Mexican bateas. The 
lucky Mexicans have bought fine suits of clothes, and intend 
vamosing for home in a few days." 

"Mr. Daniel Boyle has shown us a fine sjDecimen, weigh- 
ing seventeen ounces, of pure gold, taken from Columbia 
Gulch." 

"New diggings were discovered yesterday in Matelot 
Gulch. Several pans, averaging two dollars each, were 
taken out, and large numbers of miners were staking off 
claims during the whole of Wednesday night. " 

"Mining is yet in its infancy in this vicinity. On Gold 
Hill they have coyotcd to the depth of ninety feet, and 



HISTORY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 109 

find the dirt to be worth from four to sixteen dollars a 
pan.' 

" Every miner who wishes work can find it at from four 
to five dollars per day, wages." 



Social Matters in Columbia. 

In the summer of 1852, Mrs. Haley established the first 
school ever opened in Columbia. As to the success of the 
institution, it is impossible at this day to speak. It is 
known, however, to have continued for several months. 

Afterwards a school was established by the wife of C. H. 
Chamberlain, Esq. This talented lady achieved a success 
in her pursuit, and giving satisfaction, remained in charge 
of the school until 1855. The lady brought to the difficult 
task the highest qualities of mind and heart, and her in- 
fluence on the youth of Columbia was of thegreatest good. 

It would seem that there was at that time quite a sub- 
stratum of refinement and some literary taste rife in the 
town, even at that early date, for, in addition to schools 
and churches, there was a Lyceum established, in which 
many people, including some prominent citizens, took part. 
This organization met weekly in the Assembly Room, over 
Harrison's book store. 

An excellent feature of the Gazette was the publication of 
what was styled a " General Directory." This appeared 
in the advertising columns, and contained a considerable 
amount of information relating to chui*che8, societies, etc. 
Therein were to be found notices like the following : 

' ' Methodist Episcopal Chuech, Columbia. Divine service 
will be held every Lord's-day, at 11 o'clock, a. m., and 3 
o'clock p. M. A. S. Gibbons, Pastor." 



110 HISTOKY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 

' ' Methodist Episcopal Chukch, South, Columbia. Divine 
service will be held every Sabbath at 11 o'clock a. m., and 
at 7 in the evening. J. C. Pkendergrass, Pastor." 

" Methodist Episcopal Chueh, Springfield. Divine ser- 
vice will be held every Sabbath evening at 7 o'clock. 

A. S. Gibbons, Pastor." 

"Methodist Episcopal Church, Sonora. Divine service 
will be held every Lord's-day at 11 o'clock a. m., and at 
early candle-light in the evening. Sunday School at half- 
past 2, p. M. Daniel Deal, Pastor." 

"Methodist Episcop.vl Church, South, Sonora. Divine 
service will be held every Sabbath, at 11 o'clock a. m., and 
at 7 o'clock in the evening. M. Evans, Pastor." 

J^ Masons — 

^^XJolumhia Lodge, No. 28, A. F. and A. M. , Columbia, 
meets at their Lodge room, on the first and third Thurs- 
days in each month, at 8 o'clock, p. m. 

" Officers of the Lodge— T. J. Osley, W. M.; J. A. Jack- 
son, S. W.; T. C. Boswell, J. W.; G. A. Field, Secretary; 
J. Mills, Treasurer ; F. K Sponster, S. D. ; F. W. H. 
Aaron, J. D. ; J. Campbell, T.; A. Campbell, Marshal ; 
J. C. Prendergrass, Chaplain ; Samuel Arnold and Isaac 
Levy, Stewards. 

" Taoliimne Lodge, A. F. and A. M., Sonora, meets on 
the first and third Saturdays of every month, at their Lodge 
room." 
" Odd Fellows — 

"Sonora Lodge, No. 10, Sonora, meets every Wednesday 
evening, at their Lodge room, corner of Washington and 
Dodge streets." 
" Sons of Temperance — 

" Columbia Division, No. 18, Columbia, meets every 
Wednesday evening in the new M. E. Church." 



HISTORY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. Ill 

'' Sonora Division, No. 16, Sonora, meets every Thursday 
evening in the Methodist Church, South." 

' ' Post Offices — 

" Columbia Post office, open from 8 o'clock, a. m. to 8 p. 
M. On the arrival of the Atlantic mails, the office will not 
be closed until 11 o'clock, p. m. 

A. A. HUNNEWELL, P. M." 

Sonora Post-office, open from 9 o'clock, a. m. to 7 p. m 
Sundays, from 10 o'clock a. m. to 3 p. m. 

H. W. Theall, p. M." 

" POST-OFFICES IN TUOLUENE COUNTY. 

Columbia — A. A. Hunnewell, P. M. 

Sonora— H. W. Theall, P. M. 

Jacksonville — George B. Keys, P. M. 

Jamestown — Colonel Donovan, P. M. 

Curtisville — Peter Dean, P. M. 

Big Oak Flat— Joseph W. Brittain, P. M. 

Green Springs — James D. Tabor, P. M. 

Horr's Ranch — G. D. Dickinson, P. M. 

Oak Springs— G. D. Shoemake, P. M." 
Additional matter relating to the progress of Columbia 
is to be gleaned from the advertising columns of the Gazette. 
There are to be seen the advertisements of Wells, Fargo & 
Co., who announce a daily express to and from San Fran- 
cisco, Stockton, Jamestown, Sonora, Columbia, Murphy's, 
and Mokelumne Hiil, connecting with a daily express from 
Mount Ophir, Mariposa and all other prominent places 
south. Also, to all parts of the Atlantic States and Europe, 
as well as the Northern Mines. Wm. Daegener was the 
agent at Columbia, and the office of the Company was at 
the American Hotel. 

Adams & Co. announce at the same time (February, 1854) 
the removal of their office to the building occupied by C. 



112 HISTORY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 

D. Brown, on Main street, where they had erected a fire 
and thief proof vault, "one of the best in California," and 
were prepared to receive gold dust and coin on deposit, 
paying also the highest rates for the former. 

James Mills & Co. , Banters (Branch of D. O. Mills & 
Co., of Sacramento) did business on the corner of Main 
and Fnlton streets, where they had "one of Herring's 
largest fire proof safes, enclosed in a commodious and 
secure vault." A peculiarity of this firm was that they 
were closed to business on Sundays, an additional evidence 
of the improvement in morality, before mentioned. 

W. G. Vanarsdall, of the American Hotel, announces a 
new opening of his house, he having fitted it up in elegant 
style, incidentally mentioning that Kelty & Co.'s stages 
leave his doors four times a day, bound for Sonora. 

The Trustees of the Tuolumne Water Company declared, 
at that time, a dividend of thirty- two dollars on each of 
their two hundred and seventy-five shares. This is signed 
by W. H. Clark, President, and E. A. Eobinson, Sec- 
retary. 

Others, who^e business affairs appear in this and other 
issues of the Gazette, were T. R. Taylor, Counsellor at Law, 
ofi&ce on Broadway, one door below old Court-room; J. T. 
Fish, Attorney and Notary Public, ofiice corner of Broad- 
way and Washington streets; H. Stone, tin shop; Andrew 
Hochmouth, meat market; Gischel & Hildenbrand, " Boston 
Bakery;" Fleming & Hedden, blacksmiths and wagon- 
makers; John Leary, auctioneer, Broadway, four doors 
north of Columbia Exchange; Dr. Fields' " Columbia Drug 
Store;" John A. Cardinell & Co., St. Charles Restaurant, 
corner of Broadway and Washington streets; John G. 
Sparks, law office, Broadway, near Court-room; Messrs. 
Sotrr & Marshall, butchers, Columbia market, corner 
Main and Fulton streets; Eagle Cottage (boarding house). 



mSTORY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTT. 113 

William Odenheimer and Captain McLane ; Columbia 
Brewery and Syrup Manufactory, P. Rocher & Co. 



Incorporation of Columbia. 

In May, 1854, the town was incorporated, and town 
officers elected under the "General Incorporation Act." 
The first Board of Trustees was composed of Samuel 
Arnold, Sewell Knapp, F. F. Bartlett, Alden Sears and 
James McLean. Captain Haley was chosen Marshal, C. 
Brown, Treasurer, and P. Q. Ferguson, Assessor. 



-<^ The Fire of 1854. 

On July 10, 1854, Columbia was ravaged by the most 
serious and extensive conflagration that had ever occurred 
there, and with the exception of the burning of Sonora, 
the most serious fire that Tuolumne county had ever wit- 
nessed. It broke out near Clark's hotel, on Broadway, 
and consumed nearly every house on Broadway, Fulton, 
Washington, State and Main streets, the only notable ex- 
ception being Donald & Parsons' fireproof building on the 
corner of Main and Washington streets, which escaped the 
general destruction. 

The mails at the Post Ofiice were saved, as also was the 
express matter of Adams & Co. and Wells, Fargo & Co. 

Both printing offices (the Clipper had been established 
at Columbia, in May previous, by Heckendorn & Gist) 
were burned, but the greater part of the material was 
saved, the Gazette press being broken. 

The banking and express buildings, the Columbia Ex- 
change, Court House, Columbia House, American House, 
saloons, etc., were entirely destroyed. 

The principal losses were as follows: N. Brown & Co., 



114 mSTOET OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 

$25,000; Jackson & Stone, $18,000; Sauguet, $4,000; I. 
Shotwell, $5,000; C. J. Brown, $6,000; A. P. Hollister, 
$7,500; P. G. Ferguson, $8,000; Mrs. Levy, $5,000; H. 
K. White, $5,000; Storr & Marshall, $5,000; James Mills 
& Co., $4,000; W. G. Vanarsdall, $5,000; A. Farnsworth, 
$7,000. The above buildings were on Main street. On 
Broadway — T. N. Cazneau's Exchange Theater and other 
buildings, $20,000; McKenty & Co., $9,000; C. Cardwell, 
$7,000; Clark's Hotel, $10,000; O. Tower, $8,000; French 
drug store, $6,000; Columbia Brewery, $5,000; Brainard, 
$15,000; Joel Levy, $5,000. On Washington, State and 
Fulton streets — Eagle Cottage, $4,500; Boston Bakery, 
$10,000; 0. P. Davis, $4,000; Easkell, $5,000. These, with 
minor losses, made up a sam total of half a million of 
dollars. 

Although almost entirely obliterated by the devouring 
flames, the town did not remain extinct, but with true 
California enterprise, immediately began the work of re- 
building, while yet the smoke arose from the unconsumed 
fragments. By noon of the next day, thirty buildings 
were sufficiently far advanced to admit of occupancy, and 
many others were well under way. Quite a number of the 
new structures that were begun were intended to be fire- 
proof, and were of a very substantial character. Among 
them was a theater building, to be known as " Armory 
Hall," for use by the " Columbia Fusileers," a military or- 
ganization which had been formed in the preceding Janu- 
ary. The hall contained a stage twelve feet deep, while 
the auditorium was sixty-two by thirty feet dimensions. 
John Leary was the projector. 



HISTORY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 115 

Montezuma and the Hydraulic Ditch. 

Among other camps which had attracted attention pre- 
vious to 1853, Montezuma was one of the most prominent. 
Its period of greatest prosperity was during the above- 
named 3'ear. The Montezuma Flats, from which the town 
received its name, are nine miles from Sonora, and com- 
mence at the palisaded rocks of Table Mountain, which 
bound it on the north and west, and extend some six miles 
southward and three miles eastward. The ground is 
gently undulating, variegated with groves and clusters of 
trees, rendering it one of the pleasantest and most agree- 
able localities, hardly exceeded by any for family resi- 
dence. 

Its mining interests were very important, although up to 
the last of 1852 the ground had hardly been more than 
prospected, as no streams passed through these flats, so 
they were only capable of being worked through a few 
weeks in the heaviest rains; yet during that period they 
proved at least ordinarily rich, and, what was of the great- 
est importance, the gold was found to be uniformly dif- 
fused through the gravel, over a very great extent, making 
the remuneration of the miner certain. No very rich 
strikes were made, but during the limited time in which 
work was prosecuted, the miners averaged ten dollars 
daily, and, in some cases, twenty — laboring, too, under the 
disadvantage of an inadequate supply of water. 

As might be expected, the enterprise of the various 
water companies led to the immediate construction of 
ditches to convey the valuable fluid to the anxious miner on 
the Flats. The Tuolumne County Water Company, by the 
1st of December, 1852, had their canal completed to the 
desired spot, and constructed a large reservoir for use in 
the dry season. The ditch carried a stream three and a 



116 HISTOKY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 

half feet in width by two in depth, furnishing an abun- 
dant supply. 

The Tuolumne Hydraulic Association, whose canal 
tapped the Tuolumne River some twenty-five miles east of 
Sonora, and at an elevation of five thousand feet, in- 
augurated even more extensive works, of which the main 
branch carried water to Montezuma. 

This great work, the Tuolumne Hydraulic Association's 
ditch, merits a more extended description than it would be 
likely to receive in the terse accounts of camps and mining 
grounds to which its benefits extended; therefore, the 
following description of a trip made by Mr. Murray, of the 
Sonora Herald, to the Company's works, with an interesting 
and capitally written account of what he saw on the road, 
is included in this work: 

"Being fairly fagged out with too much work, and 
having heard a great deal touching the mountain region of 
Tuolumne, we determined to shake the dust of Sonora from 
our feet and take to the hills for a day or two. Accord- 
ingly, one day last week we procured ourself a good horse 
and started off up country, with the intention of seeing a 
little of the far-famed mountain range, as well as inspect- 
ing the works of the Tuolumne Hydraulic Association, of 
whose operations the public have heard so much. 

" In company with Captain Puckett, who kindly volun- 
teered to show us the way, we started up the hill overlook- 
ing Sonora to the eastward, and traveled over about five 
miles of the usual barren-looking, arid, dusty, up-hill and 
down-dale, until we reached the ranch of Mayor Dodge, 
on Sullivan's Creek, back of Bald Mountain. We should 
judge that this gentleman here has some five or six hun- 
dred acres of land, all highly susceptible to cultivation, 
level and easily irrigated. Most of it is fenced in, and 
there are an excellent house and out-houses, with other im- 



HISTORY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 117 

provements, upon it. Timber is more plentiful here than 
around Sonora, and it is the most extensive piece of level 
ground that we saw on our journey. 

" We passed along Sullivan's Creek for about five miles, 
encountering on our way some five or six ranches, very 
eligibly located, but all inferior to that of Mr. Dodge, All 
the way along we met a constant succession of wagons, 
bringing shingles, lumber, etc., into Sonora. The road 
had more the air of the one running to Stockton than of 
that to the summit of the Sierra Nevada. About ten 
miles from Sonora, we ascended the spur which divides 
the head waters of Sullivan's Creek, and which forms the 
lower end of the great dividing ridge between the Tuol- 
umne and the Stanislaus. Two or three miles further on 
we ascended a succession of eminences, finally gaining a 
footing upon the main ridge. These two main ascents, 
which are daily traveled by wagons, are the only difficult 
places which we witnessed for thirty miles out of Sonora. 
The road, after reaching the summit of the ridge, passes 
along it all the way, and is as even and easy as the road to 
Stockton. After attaining this high elevation, we felt the 
atmosphere to be sensibly cooler, the weather, at two 
o'clock in the afternoon, being such as to almost justify 
the use of an overcoat. We found the dwarf oaks of the 
mining region to be getting scarcer and scarcer, and the 
pines and cedars to be looming up taller and taller at every 
step. The ridge expands, after awhile, into a strip of 
table land, displaying as fine a succession of little valleys 
as is to be found in the lower region we had left behind 
us. Ranch after ranch we found taken up, the buildings 
being found in great plenty and improvements in rapid 
progress. In several places we found extensive zig-zag 
fences going up, made of straight young pines, of which 
there are innumerable quantities. The soil there is of a 



118 HISTOKT OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 

light color and sandy texture, and, we are told, is very fer- 
tile. From the fine growth of the trees, together with the 
green appearance which the surface of the earth here 
presents, covered with ferns and other vegetation, we 
were led to believe we were not misinformed. We passed 
through a succession of some six or seven of these ranches, 
of from one to three hundred acres in extent, and all 
presenting the most eligible farm-sites, whether for pas- 
turage, agriculture or timber privileges. 

"About twenty miles from Sonora we passed the last 
ranch and entered upon still higher ground, peculiarly 
fitted for shingle-making and timber cutting. The pines 
here are magnificent, and attract quite a large colony of 
shingle-makers, who camp out here in squads, and ha.ul 
the results of their labor into Sonora for disjjosal. From 
time to time we passed blazed trees and notices, intimating 
that certain individuals bad commenced locating their 
quarter sections of land upon this most valuable vicinity. 
Mile after mile of dense pine woods did we traverse — not 
alone the ridge, but the slopes on either side, being thickly 
covered with straight, tall trees. The hills on the opposite 
side of the Tuolumne present the same appearance. We 
were much struck with the peculiar capabilities which this 
region j)resents for the cutting of timber, and we are 
well convinced that from this part of the country will here- 
after be drawn the large supplies of that article, which will 
be needed within the section of country embraced within 
the rivers Tuolumne and Stanislaus. 

"About twenty-five miles from Sonora we left the main 
road, called the Ice Trail, which continues on along the 
main ridge toward the Sierra Nevada, and descended a rather 
precipitous hillside to the store of Captain Puckett. This 
is beautifully situated, at the bottom of the ravine formed 
by Sugar Pine Creek. Although we had passed through 



HISTORY OP TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 119 

many miles of a fine timber countxy, we were fairly sur- 
prised at the scene which here presents itself. Thick-set 
as are the pines on the summit and slopes of the ridge, be- 
low they are far more so. The whole bed of the creek is 
fairly choked up with vegetation. Pine and cedar trees, 
from the smallest size up to eight and ten feet in diameter, 
and of proportionate hight, spring up in serried ranks all 
around. No other shade is needed, for the rays of the sun 
can with difficulty find their way through the thick tops to 
the earth's surface. The ground is covered with a dense 
undergrowth of fern and other plants and bushes, and 
everything around is of a beautiful green, contrasting de- 
lightfully with the arid and dusty appearance of things 
nearer the plains. 

" We found here some twenty or thirty men, who were 
at work upon the race of the Tuolumne Hydraulic Com- 
pany. The race is intended to cross Sugar Pine Creek at 
this place, with a flume some forty or fifty feet from the 
ground, supported by ample pillars, which are here to be 
found ready to hand, in any quantity and of all dimensions. 
"We inspected the race on either side of the creek, and 
found it to be of large size, and well and securely constructed. 
" We slept at Captain Puckett's one night, and early in 
the morning proceeded one fourth of a mile up the creek, 
to the house of Judge Ketchum, the contractor and engi- 
neer of the Company. Upon making ourselves known to 
this gentleman, he very kindly offered to show us over the 
works, and soon mounted his mule and accompanied us on 
the way. We traveled on a few hundred yards along the 
left bank of the creek, until we struck a beautiful bottom, 
which the Judge has taken up for a ranch. We were per- 
fectly delighted with this piece of ground, which is a very 
favorable specimen of the little valleys and creek bottoms 
that are scattered about in this region. It contains about 



120 HISTORY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 

one hundred acres of the very best agricultural land, per- 
fectly level, and capable of irrigation in every part, and at 
all seasons of the year. This, however, is not necessary, 
as several springs rise in various parts, affording naturally 
all the irrigation that is needed, and preserving in the val- 
ley perpetual greenness of verdure. The valley is bounded 
by steep and lofty hills, which inclose it on all sides. It 
is nearly free from timber, but is fringed all the way round 
with thick ranks of bristling pines, which cover all the hill- 
sides and encroach somewhat upon the level land. We 
have never seen a more beautiful spot in any part of the 
wrorld. It is just such a one as a lover of nature might well 
long to live and die in, and is quite unsuited to the coarse, 
matter-of-fact life inseparable from a sojourn in California. 
The Judge has cut, this year, quite a good quantity of hay 
on it, and intends to pay more attention to its capabilities 
next year. He assures us that higher up the creek, and on 
the Tuolumne, there are many other spots of similar and 
even of greater natural advantages, most of which, however, 
have been taken up for ranches. 

"Leaving Sugar Pine, we ascended the ridge between 
the Stanislaus and Tuolumne, and proceeded along it some 
four or five miles, all the way observing the same natural 
features which we have above described. We then de- 
scended a gradual declivity and arrived at the headquarters 
of the Judge's working party, a few rods below the dam. 
Judge Ketchum very politely showed us over the works at 
this end of the race, and described to us all the arrange- 
ments he had made and intended making for the security 
and due completion of the great work upon which he is 
engaged. We will endeavor to give a fair and just descrip- 
tion of what we saw, so that the public may form some idea 
of what the company is doing. 

" The dam at the head of the race is, at the highest cal- 



HISTORY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 121 

culation, about thirty miles from Sonora. It is built of 
strong, stout logs, set into the bed of the river in a slanting 
position, the upper ends resting upon a structure composed 
of logs, laid horizontally, one upon another, after the 
fashion of a log house. Other logs are planted so as to 
support the dam, being firmly braced upon the solid rock. 
The superincumbent water thus lies upon the dam, pressing 
it down and keeping it in its place. The winter freshets 
will pass over, leaving it undamaged. 

" The race commences on the left bank of the river, con- 
sisting, for several hundred feet, of a strong flume, con- 
structed of six-inch timbers. This connects with a ditch 
dug in the side-hill, which conveys the water for several 
hundred yards further, when the side of the river becomes 
more precipitous and rocky, requiring to be flumed. Here 
commences the main fluming, and great care has been taken 
to construct a firm and solid grade upon which to support 
it. Much skill has been displayed by the engineer, in this 
department. Huge trees have been felled, and firmly 
propped in their places to support the sleepers; rocks have 
been partially blasted so as to convert them from obstruc- 
tions into firm supports for the fluming. Gulches have 
been bridged, thirty or forty feet in hight, in order to 
avoid the curve which would be occasioned by following the 
side-hill round to cross them. We were gratified to see 
that upon this part of the race, extending for several miles, 
the principal part of the work has been done. Other com- 
panies have commenced at the easiest part of their labor — 
ditching and grading wherever practicable. Most of the 
route of the Hydraulic Company will only need ditching ; 
but Judge Ketchum has wisely left this part of the work 
untouched, taking the bull by the horns and attacking the 
hardest part of the work first. "What work has been ex- 
pended has been of a most substantial character, and has 



122 HISTOET OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 

been aimed at those very portions of the route which per- 
sons skeptical as to the success of the Company would be 
likely to point out as most insurmountable. 

" The distinguishing feature of the Hydraulic Company's 
route appears to be that most of it is of an extremely easy 
character, only a few miles presenting any serious difficulty. 
This portion of it is now nearly half overcome, and a corps 
of forty or fifty men are in full activity, providing for its 
completion. Furthermore, the whole of the route is now 
under contract to practical men, who will immediately pro- 
ceed to the construction of the ditching, by far the longest, 
but the easiest j)ortion of the work. Judge Ketchum as- 
sures us that there are now, in all, about eighty men em- 
ployed on the race, and that the whole of the work will be 
completed by three months from date. We give this upon 
the Judge's authority. We were much pleased with the 
undertaking, and believe that it will prove of immense 
benefit to the country. We have heard the Tuolumne 
Hydraulic Company's race often sneered at as being alto- 
gether too large for the purpose aimed at, but we are well 
convinced that the mining resources of this county are of 
sufficient extent to exhaust more water than all the races 
yet projected will be able to supply. 

" It has been supposed by some that the volume of water 
found ^in the North Fork of j the Tuolumne will be 
insufficient to supply this race all the year round. This is 
the only adverse circumstance that we have yet noticed ; 
but it is only of a partial, and we trust not irremediable 
character. There is, at this moment, an eight or ten torn 
stream running through the Company's dam, which, if the 
race were completed, could now be used. Furthermore, we 
learn that an exi^edition has been sent up, within the last 
fortnight, to survey the ground, and inquire into the prac- 
ticability of turning the water of the Middle Fork into the 



HISTORY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 123 

North Fork, so as to increase the supply in that branch- 
We learn that the exploring party have made a yery favor- 
able report, and that an expense of only thirty thous- 
and dollars will be incurred in the undertaking. Be 
this as it may, nothing is more certain than the fact that 
the race, as originally projected, will be capable of afford- 
ing a large and abundant stream of water during at least 
NINE MONTHS OF THE YEAR, and all who havc had experience 
in these undertakings will need no assurance from us to 
convince them of the immense advantage which it will 
confer ui:)on the mining population of the county, or the 
large profits which must accrue to the projectors. 

" "We were particularly pleased with the lasting, substan- 
tial character of the work which has been done upon this 
race. The timbers are all heavy — the supports, of what- 
ever kind, ample and secure. Great care has been taken 
to avoid unnecessary curvature, and the Judge contem- 
plates being enabled to use the race as a medium of float- 
ing timber to Sonora. If this be done, the race will 
become doubly valuable. 

" The dimensions of the race are three feet in width at 
bottom ; three feet in depth, with a slope at the sides of 
one foot to each foot in depth. The fluming is to be eight 
feet wide, and two and a half feet in depth. 

" Leaving the Tuolumne behind us, we again ascended 
the hill, and traveled on our road home until we reached 
the Judge's ranch. Here we ascended the ridge between 
Sugar Pine Creek and the Stanislaus, and undertook to de- 
scend the other side, with the intention of striking the 
Stanislaus race. AVe had no trail to guide us, but errone- 
ously concluded that we should be sure to find a trail run- 
ning parallel with the race. The descent soon became so 
precipitous that we were compelled to dismount and lead 
our horse, and even then proceeded with great difficulty. 



124 HISTORY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 

At length, after half an hour's painful descent, we struck 
the flume of the Stanislaus race, but found no facility of 
any kind for traveling up or down it. Accordingly we 
hitched our horse, and attempted by scrambling, climbing, 
and other gymnastic evolutions to follow along the course 
of the race to the dam. We struggled along in this man- 
ner for over a mile, hoping every minute to arrive at our 
destination, until at length, reaching a wide bend of the 
river, we saw more than half a mile of fluming still stretch- 
ing before us, and no sign of a termination. It was getting 
late in the afternoon, so we judged it best to return. 

" We cannot convey to the reader any idea of the depth 
of solitude which reigns in this region, or of the extreme 
difl&culty which exists in the way of progression. We were 
unable to divine how men could even have traveled along 
this route, much less construct the extent of grading and 
woodwork which has been accomplished. We admired 
very much the ingenuity with which the flume has been di- 
rected along a side-hill which is almost impassable to the 
foot of man. Sometimes it rests upon the top of a huge 
rock ; at another time it runs beneath an overhanging mass 
of the same material, and again leads along the side hill, 
inside of some projecting, rocky promontory. All sorts of 
angles and curves have been made; rocks of all kinds, and 
stumps of trees, have been taken advantage of, and all 
sorts of manoeuvres have been made to carry on and com- 
plete the work. The general aspect of this part of the 
route is unpromising in the extreme, the bed of the stream 
being choked up, and the side-hill being impeded on all 
sides with jutting and loose rocks, of all sorts and sizes. 
A scrubby chapparal is the only vegetation, which adds to 
the desolation of the scene. We v;ere glad to get out of 
the gully, and could not but admire the energy and perse- 
verance of the men who had completed such an unpromis- 
ing and apparently impracticable work. 



HISTORY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 125 

"We regained our borse and spent some two hours in 
clambering out of tiie unpleasant position in which we had 
placed ourselves. It was then about four o'clock, and we 
were some twenty miles from Sonora. So we put spurs 
to our Bucephalus, managing to get in not long after night- 
fall; receiving solace for our wanderings in the shape of a 
long and pleasant night's sleep." 

From the chatty writer's entertaining sketch, much in- 
formation can be gained as to the country lying east of 
Sonora, for which purpose in fact it was included. 



The Water Supply, 

At the date at which Mr. Murray wrote, mining opera- 
tions had assumed a complexion to which they had before 
been strangers. More water was required in consequence 
of the greater and more permanent character of the works 
necessary to be undertaken to extract the gold. Formerly 
working only in the very rich surface deposits, and sepa- 
rating the gold from the gravel by means of the pan and 
the rocker, the supply of water furnished by accidental 
pools and trinkling rills had sufficed. Now, with the ex- 
haustion of the superficial deposits, and the intrusion upon 
larger masses of poorer gravel, came the necessity for a 
copious and constant supply of the aqueous fluid; and to 
meet this demand came the construction of those immense 
and costly pieces of engineering science that pervade these 
foothills. The two aqueducts mentioned by Mr. Murray 
— the hydraulic race and the Stanislaus race (the Tuolumne 
Water Company's ditch) — were not the only ones of their 
kind; although they merit the distinction of being among 
the most extensive that have ever been undertaken in the 
county down to the present time. 

At the commencement of the previous Winter there had 
been two ditches fetching water into the dry diggings of 



126 HISTORY OP TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 

the county. Both of these were small — not having a 
capacity greater than an eight or ten torn stream each. Both 
took their supply from creeks subject to the effects of 
drouth, and consequently conveyed their full streams dur- 
ing but a very short period of time. One of these was the 
Seco Company's race, bringing water from Wood's Creek 
into Campo Seco; the other the Jackson's Flat race, from 
Mormon Creek to Jackson's Fiat. 

Some time in February the Sonora Water Company went 
into operation, conveying water from Sullivan's Creek to 
Sonora. Their ditch was somewhat larger than the fore- 
going, carrying a twenty tom^ stream, which diminished 
about one half before June, The next completed was the 
Sullivan's Creek race, bringing water from that Creek to 
Shaw's Flat. This race was about equal in capacity to that 
of the Sonora Company, but it was enabled to fetch water 
for a few weeks only. In that time, however, the lucrative 
character of the undertaking was fully demonstrated, for 
the expense of digging the ditch was speedily paid, and a 
handsome dividend remained for the stockholdeis. Miners 
flocked in by the hundred to the vicinity of the water, and 
for a short time it infused life and activity into a section of 
country which was afterwards nearly deserted. This com- 
pany extended its ditch to the Tuolumne, and by that 
means was enabled to hold out much longer in the ensuing 
year. Nexi came the Tuolumne Water Company, which 
had by that time brought a small stream of water from Five 
Mile Creek. It never exceeded a twenty torn stream, and 
yet for a time, in June and July, it was the only support 
and maintenance of a brisk industry in Columbia — so much 
so that there was talk, and a well founded belief that the 
town would prove a rival to Sonora. 

Following the first rains came an immediate revival in 
mining. All of the races mentioned began to pour floods 
upon the grounds in which, at that time, there was an am- 



HISTOKY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 127 

pie deposit of the precious metal, needing only an applica- 
tion of energy and intelligence to get it out. All were 
active at one and the same time, and these little races each 
set in operation a great number of toms, each stream being 
used over and over again until the water had arrived at too 
low a level to be of utility. 

But in addition to those already named, the ditch of the 
Tuolumne Water Company, then completed to the Stanis- 
laus, sent down, for the first time, the waters of that river 
upon the auriferous belt, bringing a hundred and fifty torn 
stream into Columbia, and carrying a portion of it quite to 
the Montezuma Flats, as before mentioned. A tremendous 
impetus was given to operations in the whole section of 
country round Columbia, Springfield and Shaw's Flat, the 
community, constantly augmented by accessions from 
abroad, becoming actively engaged in the search for the 
glittering metal. Probably not less than three thousand 
miners were actively engaged within a circle of one mile 
radius. 

During the Winter, the use of sluice-boxes forming a 
continuous flume, often several hundred feet in length, 
first came into vogue. At Campo Seco, where an abundant 
supply of water from the ditches o% the Hydraulic Water 
Company, the Campo Seco Ditch Company and that of 
Messrs. Johnson & Carey was available, the first extended 
use of the new contrivance was made. The work proved 
comparatively easy considering the immense amount of 
dirt which could be washed by the exertions of lines of 
men on either side of the sluice. In consequence, the dig- 
gings at that place were more extensively worked than ever 
before. 

One of the places particularly indebted for its growth to 
the Hydraulic Ditch was Algerine Camp, which diggings, 
located two miles from Curtisville, were first opened in 



128 HISTORY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 

May, 1853. The first discoveries were made in the pre- 
vious Winter by some Mexicans, immediately on which Mr. 
C. F. Dodge, of Sonora, and several other gentlemen, be- 
came interested in and took up claims in the more favored 
spots. Very large amounts of gold were soon taken out, 
and the reports being circulated, a large population was 
soon attracted to the very important discovery. Merchants 
and business men generally located, a wide street was laid 
out, and tents erected to supply the wants of the camp. 
Fifteen or twenty frame houses were then immediately be- 
gun, among them a hotel. Almost the entire population 
residing on Curtis' Creek removed at once to the new dig- 
gings, leaving this once immensely rich watercourse de- 
serted, after having worked its entire bed several times. 



Social Progress. 

Under date of March 25th, 1854, the editor of the So- 
nora Herald wrote as follows: "We are gratified to see 
the marked improvement that has taken place in the soci- 
ety of our little city in the past year. As an evidence of 
this, witness how differently Sabbath is observed. In past 
years, on this sacredl day, might be seen a fantastically 
dressed Mexican clown, j)receded by a band of shockingly 
bad music, parading the streets and notifjdng the citizens 
of a bull and bear fight about to come ofi". Now, instead, 
at the same hour of the day, troops of rosy-faced, quiet, 
orderly children are seen returning from Sunday-school, 
and well-dressed men and women on their way to the 
house of worship. We can boast now of five churches 
of difierent denominations, and all of them well atjiended 
— good evidence of an advanced state of civilization. 

" Then, on the same day, the city was crowded with the 
inhabitants of surrounding camps, quarreling, fighting, 
drinking, swearing, squandering the hard-earned means of 



HISTORY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 129 

the past week at the gambling table, or at some low brothel. 
Now, although not such as could be wished, things ara 
changed. The day is regarded by the public generally, 
more as one of rest from labor, and not as one of debauch- 
ery and dissipation. 

" And what has caused this great change in public senti- 
ment ? To what else can it be attributed but to the pres- 
ence of woman; virtuous, pure, sympathizing woman; 
whose influence is as effective in the formation of public 
character, as it is felt in the domestic circle; the great 
controller of public opinion, without whom society is dull 
and existence a blank. 

" The very considerable accession to our population in 
the last year of some of the fairer portion of God's creation 
is a source of intense gratification to all, and we indulge in 
the pleasurable anticipation that the coming will year fur- 
nish a still larger number." 

At this time there was in progress a private school, 
taught by Mrs. Harmon, wife of Rev. S. S. Harmon, then 
a prominent clergyman of Sonora, but now Principal of 
Washington College, in Alameda county. The good lady's 
pupils numbered some twenty. Her terms were eight 
dollars per month for the older ones, while those under 
twelve years of age were charged five dollars. 

Another of the permanent institutions was a military 
company, the '-Sonora Greys," which was organized in 
the Spring of '54. It number about fifty members, and 
was commanded by Captain H, W. Theall, who was regarded 
as an accomplished officer and drill-master, and whose 
name has before appeared in these pages as a prominent 
merchant of Tuolumne, and who was at that time Post- 
master of Sonora. Making a requisition upon the United 
States Quartermaster General, the "Greys," were provided 
with arms and accoutrements. Their uniform was very 



130 HISTORY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 

neat and tasteful, being of gray cloth with black trim- 
mings. For a long time the "Greys" remained an im- 
portant and much noticed organization, taking a promi- 
nent part in military and civic displays, and occasionally 
responding to calls to assist on graver occasions. Their 
valor was never tried in war, but had the occasion arisen it 
would doubtless have been the historian's pleasant task to 
chronicle behavior of which the community might well be 
proud. 

During two years the meetings of the company were held 
in rented buildings; but inspired by the example of their 
sister corps, the "Fusileers" of Columbia, they resolved 
to erect an armory for their own special uses. To this pur- 
pose. Major Ball's building was raised an additional story, 
and in this upper part the "Greys," now under Captain 
Stewart, had their quarters. The hall, sixty by twenty- 
nine feet in size, was fitted up in good style, the expense 
being borne partly by the corps and partly by the public- 
spirited residents of Sonora. 

Besides the " Fusileers," already mentioned as occupy- 
ing John Leary's Armory Hall, and who first organized in 
January, 1854, Columbia possessed another military com- 
pany, the " Columbia Light Artillery." This, however, 
was not of so old a date as the other, it meeting first in 
June, 1857. This corps became quite a feature in the 
county, far outshining the more common-place infantry. 

The Artillery was commanded by Major J. B. Urmy, 
associate editor of the Tuolumne Courier, his subordinates 
being Lieutenant Hooker and Sergeants McDonald and 
Leavitt. 



The Banks of Tuolumne. 

The earlier banks estabished in Tuolumne were located 
at Sonora, and have already been noticed in these pages. 



HISTORY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 131 

Their number has been a matter of remark, but their cap- 
ital and connections, and the amount of their business, 
cannot now be accurately told. Their affairs went on pros- 
perously in almost every instance, their chief business 
being the buying and transmission of gold dust from the 
mines to the Eastern States. 

The year 1855, however, marked an era of misfortune 
and peril to the banking houses of that date. As before 
mentioned, the house of Wells, Fargo & Co. had estab- 
lished themselves in the mines, having several offices in 
Tuolumne county. Besides this firm, there were Adams & 
Co., Page, Bacon & Co., D. O. Mills & Co., all of whom 
had the confidence of the public to a remarkable degree. 
That this confidence was abused by some of them, time has 
made evident, for in February, 1855, rumors of the forth- 
coming ruin of some of the firms began to be heard 
throughout all California, into nearly every mining camp 
of which State their branches had extended. A universal 
panic was created, which led shortly to the suspension of 
some of these houses and the total failure of Page, Bacon 
& Co., thereby rendering penniless hundreds of those whom 
the hard won accumulations of years had made comfortable. 
Still there remained some firms who came forth from the 
wreck honestly and well, more flourishing and prosperous 
than ever, passing safely through the ordeal, and coming 
to possess the esteem of the communities wherein they 
transacted business. 

In Columbia, D. O. Mills & Co. stood the fight bravely, 
paying their claims as fast as presented, and going on with- 
out embarrassment. Their stability was hardly doubted 
from first to last, although a considerable "run ''was in- 
augurated upon their house, which compelled them to pay 
out large h-. 

Wells, Fargo & Co. remained in working order through- 



132 HISTORY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 

out the State, with the exception of a few of their offices, 
•which suspended for a short time. 

Adams & Co. had remained for several years the most 
prominent express company in the gold region. Their en- 
terprise had been remarkable, even for the time in which it 
was displayed. Their offices in Tuolumne county were on 
a par with the amount of business they transacted. Taking 
the lead in all matters of enterprise as they did, their house 
was regarded as one of the least likely to be affected. But 
the storm which had burst upon them was not to be re- 
sisted. Their doors in Columbia and Sonora closed Febru- 
ary 23, their agents stating that the suspension was only 
temporary, and that business would immediately be re- 
sumed, they having ample funds to satisfy depositors. 
The firm, however, was insolvent, and by the next mail came 
advices that they had applied for a discharge from their 
liabilities, by assigning their property to their creditors, 
their express business remaining intact throughout. 

Upon receipt of this news in Columbia, a high degree of 
excitement was occasioned, and the office of Adams & Co. 
was besieged by a crowd of men clamoring for their de- 
posits. But Charles J. Brown, the agent, had removed the 
available funds, depositing them in the safe of the Tuol- 
umne Water Company, where they remained until handed 
over to the proper receiver, A. A. Cohen, of San Francisco. 
R. A. Robinson, the Secretary of the Water Company, 
who had assumed the responsibility of secreting the money 
in the said safe, incurred great odium therefor, he being 
looked upon as particeps criminis, hy the miners, who were 
disposed to hold every one guilty who had anything to do 
with the banking companies, who had so suddenly become 
objects of detestation. The funds that thus escaped the 
seach of these unauthorized creditors amounted to seven" 
thousand dollars, including two thousand held for Mr. Bui- 



HISTORY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. lS3 

lock, the Springfield agent. At Sonora a large number of 
persons who had money deposited with Adams & Co. met 
on the 4th of March and took possession of the express 
office, broke open the vault, and removed the funds therein 
contained. A committee of four resiDectable citizens was 
appointed to disburse the money to those who held certifi- 
cates of deposit. This the committee proceeded to do, 
until all the funds, amounting to about forty thousand dol- 
lars, had been paid out to the depositors present. 

This high-spirited way of administering upon the bank- 
rupt estate was mentioned by the press of that day in 
terms of admiration, as being the correct thing to do under 
the circumstances. Probably the trifling fact that but few 
comparatively, of all the depositors were there, did not 
present itself at the time. Be the moral status of such an 
act as it may, no one was prosecuted, nor even severely 
blamed, except the members of the firm, against whom 
many judgments were secured in the Justices' Courts, 
which, for the time, were alive with business. The mem- 
bers of the firm of Adams & Co. were I. C. Woods, D. H. 
Haskell and Alvin Adams. 

An incident of the career of Messrs. Adams & Co. may 
be worth mentioning here. It is the robbery of the So- 
nora and Stockton stage, of the box containing the ship- 
ment of the above firm, amounting, this time, to more than 
twenty-five thousand dollars. The robbery took place at a 
point one mile out of Sonora, and was effected by cutting 
the straps which held the box "on the rear of the stage 
when it slipped off by its own weight. The weight was 
such as to require two men to lift it. With characteristic 
decision the agent, Mr. Bancroft, offered a reward of two 
thousand five hundred dollars for the arrest of the parties 
who committed the robber}', and five thousand dollars to any 
one through whose agency the money should be recovered. 



134 HISTORY OF TUOLUMKE COUNTY. 

and a proportion of that sum for any part of the lost bullion. 
The result was that about one-half of the stealings were 
recovered, being found in Wood's Creek, about two hundred 
yards from the scene of the robbery. The company imme- 
diately fulfilled its promise, paying to the finders the sum 
agreed. 

The remaining banking firm, Messrs. Page, Bacon & Co., 
were even less fortunate than Adams & Co., and deservedly 
so, since their actions, as every old Calif ornian knows, indi- 
cated the basest spirit of fraud. Suspending operations 
wholly, they yet had the audacity to resume business with 
only the motive of still further victimizing the public. 
After their suspension in February, their vault at James- 
town was broken into by their creditors, but with less good 
fortune than had their predecessors at Sonora stormed the 
vaults of Adams & Co. The vault was empty, the contents 
having jDreviously been removed to San Francisco, indicat- 
ing that the resolve to suspend had been made many days 
before. 

Fires in Sonora. 

During the year 1853, Sonora was twice visited by the 
devouring element, each time suifering severely, but lightly 
in comparison with her already narrated experience. On 
the first of these two occasions, which was the early morn- 
ing of October 4th, Labetoure's building, midway be- 
tween the two branches of Sonora Creek, took fire, and was 
speedily destroyed. The flames spread rapidly in every 
direction, but through the organized exertions of the Hook 
and Ladder and Hose Companies, aided by the citizens 
generally, the fire was prevented from spreading, as on a 
former occasion. The new and valuable City Hotel build- 
ing was saved by means of a large and powerful force- 
pump located within. On the north the fire was stopped 



HISTORY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 135 

by the fire companies, the last remaining building upon 
that side of the street being Cooper & McCarthy's livery 
stable. The hose from the Water Works being now 
brought into use, the fire was stayed to the northward. 

The bank buildings of Wm. Hammond & Co., Adams & 
Co. and Wells, Fargo & Co. were destroyed. 

A single life was lost on this occasion, the unfortunate 
person being E. B. Lundy, a Canadian, who was asleep in 
the rear of Holden's saloon. 

The losses aggregated three hundred thousand dollars, 
made up in part of the following named losses, which were 
the most considerable : 

Wertheimer, Grreenhood & Co., $7,500; E. Lyons & Co., 
$10,000; Murphy & Wood's " Long Tom Saloon,' $28,000; 
Aspinall& Williamson's "El Dorado," $6,000; A. Cohen 
& Co., $18,000; M. Hanna, $6,000; T. Robinson, Bours & 
Co., $5,000; M. A. Zeill, $5,000; "El Dorado Saloon" 
building, $8,000; Estate of Joshua Holden, $15,000; Leip- 
ziger & Co., $8,000; Barbier& Co., $5,000; Collins & Co., 

$8,000; "Palace" (saloon), $14,000; Lyons, $6,000; 

Caro Bros., $5,000; Peter Mehen, $4,000. 

The fire lasted one hour. 
^ The art of putting out fires, it appears, was afterwards 
studied in Sonora to considerable advantage, for the next 
conflagration of any moment entailed but the compara- 
tively small damage of fifty thousand dollars. It took 
place in the November following the fire above chronicled. 

This later blaze broke out in a building occupied'^by 
Chinese — whether accidentally or not was not known. It 
burned up Batchelder's Daguerrean Gallery, a ^^tin and 
stove store, Messick & McCullough's carpenter shoj), Neil's 
saddlery, the "Shades" saloon, a barber shop, the law 
office of Hall & Greenwood, Wood & Purdy's paint store, 
and a few other structures. 



136 HISTORY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 

Certainly, Sonora had had by this time an exceedingly 
thorough experience by fires, having within a year or so 
been burned completely over, with the exception of a few 
outlying buildings. The last fire had demolished the build- 
ings left standing by the previous ones. 

The City Hotel, mentioned in the preceding accounts 
as escaping the flames, was a very prominent building in 
those days. It was erected by Messrs. Green & Lane 
(Alonzo Green and Judge James Lane) to take the place of 
the hotel of Captain Green, mentioned previously as having 
been destroj^ed in the great fire in 1852. The old pioneers 
spoke of this structure as " a little the finest building to be 
found in the mountains of California." Its dimensions 
were fifty by one hundred feet. It was built with thick 
adobe walls, and consisted of two lofty and spacious stories. 
It was fitted up as a family hotel, and was furnished 
throughout in what was then regarded as fine style. The 
lower story was taken up by the saloon, billiard and dining 
rooms. The saloon, being very capacious, was frequently 
used for the purpose of holding political meetings, etc. A 
spacious staircase, opening on the street, leads to the up- 
per story, which contains twenty private rooms, parlors, 
etc. , all carpeted and furnished. From the roof a most 
delightful view of the city and its environs could be ob- 
tained, the hotel being situated at an angle of the main 
street, from whence nearly the whole of the town, not less 
than a mile in length, could be seen. 

The eating arrangements were on a par with the excel- 
lence of the hotel and its other appointments. The first 
proprietors were said to have been men who understood 
the business perfectly; and their enterprise and good 
judgment met its reward in the successful career of this 
house, which was for a long time regarded as one of the 
best hotels in California. 



HISTORY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 137 

After this considerably detailed descriptiou, the reader 
will have but little difficulty in identifying the structure 
spoken of with the present City Hotel of O. L. Bemis, Esq., 
and which, under that gentleman's management, still 
maintains its ancient prestige. 



The Miners' Convention. 

Public opinion had by the year 1852 been aroused to 
such an extent upon the subject of the disposition of the 
mineral lands of California, that definite action was taken 
in many localities towards influencing Congress to pass 
acts relating thereto. The causes that led to this were 
many. But direct or indirect, they may be stated thus: 
As boldly and prominently as stands the then infant State 
of California among the other members of the Union — 
peculiar in her vast mineral resources, and in the wonder- 
ful advantages which she offered to the enterprising set- 
tler, of whatever calling — so stood the mineral portion of 
the lands of this State, peculiar and remarkable from the 
general whole. Great as are her agricultural capabilities; 
happy as is her geographical position, there has ever been 
one distinguishing peculiarity that California has possessed 
beyond all other advantages, viz: the extent and produc- 
tiveness of her mineral lands. This great feature, far from 
being of ephemeral character, is yet destined long to main- 
tain its preponderating influence, and will for many years 
yet absorb the industry, capital and enterprise of a great 
mass of those who make these hills and valleys their home. 

But as this interest occupied, at the time concerning 
which these pages are written, a vastly greater preponder- 
ance of attention, hence it was that the vast extent of rich 
farming lands, stretching away for hundreds of miles 
throughout the center of the State, then, and for many 



138 HISTORY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 

succeeding years, remained in an unimproved condition, 
devoted only to the rearing of the vast herds of cattle 
which served as a tribute to the mining regions. And 
hence it was, also, that nine-tenths of the population of 
the State was then either centered in or directly de- 
pendent upon the product of the mines, capital, enterprise 
and labor all concentrating themselves around the diggings 
as a focus, while the larger cities, San Francisco, Sacra- 
mento and Stockton, all owed their activity, and even their 
existence, to the great industry of gold extraction. 

The questions which were of the highest interest to Cali- 
fornians were those, of course, which bore particular ref- 
erence to this leading pursuit. In addition, it may be said 
that no other State in the American Union, nor, indeed, 
any country in the whole world, presented a parallel to the 
wonderful singularity which characterized California. 
Other States were populated mainly by emigrants from 
some particular section of our common country. The Pa- 
cific shore was settled indiscriminately from all. The main 
dependence of other new States had been their agricultural 
resources; these formed no part of the former greatness of 
California. In other newly settled States common labor 
was considered advantageously remunerated when receiv- 
ing ten to twenty dollars per month; in California, it com- 
manded from seventy to one hundred dollars. The for- 
eign immigration into the older States had been solely 
composed of the European races; in California, the Asiatic 
element has always threatened to preponderate. Other 
States were mostly resorted to by people who came to live 
and die in their new homes; it was reserved for California 
to be looked upon as a temporary abiding place and a con- 
venient scrambling ground for the human family. 

These considerations, as well as others which suggest 
themselves to the thoughtful student of political economy, 



HISTORY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 139 

gave rise to broad and comprehensive questions hinted at 
in the beginning of this article, regarding the proper man- 
agement and disposal of the mineral lands. It was asked, 
Shall these lands, the treasure house of the ixniverse, and 
the direct and immediate cause of the unexampled pros- 
perity of the country, pass from the hands of the General 
Government? If so, how? By pre-emj)tion ? By sale? 
By donation? In large or small lots? And a'gain. Who 
should be allowed to work and hold them — American citi- 
zens only, or both them and foreigners ? 

A thought may now be given to the situation of affairs 
in Tuolumne county, as concerned in the above questions. 

All the laws and regulations concerning the mineral 
lands of the various sections were the result of the miners' 
own action. Untouched by State or national laws, the 
gold seekers were left to their own devices as regarded the 
disposal of the ground in which they worked. But early 
in the history of this county it has been seen that leagues 
of miners existed. The want of systematic rules giving to 
each one his proper rights was felt immediately uj^on the 
first experience in mining; and with the true manly in- 
stincts of the pioneers to uphold the weak and helpless, 
they made such regulations within their own " districts " 
as served to restrain the strong and aggressive, while giv- 
ing to each his right to profit by the riches so plentifully 
diffused. 

These mining laws, which at a later period were of course 
rendered null and void through the passage of legislative 
enactments covering the points at issue, have now become 
pnly a matter of history, which it may be well to more fully 
particularize. The following extracts from the mining laws 
of Springfield may serve as an example to show the scope 
embraced, as well as giving hints as to the necessity which 
induced their adoption. 



140 HISTOKY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY, 

After premising that " California is, and shall be, gov- 
erned by American principles, and as Congress has made 
no rules and regulations for the government of the mining 
districts of the same, and as the State Legislature has pro- 
vided by statute and accorded to miners the right of making 
needful laws, rules and regulations that do not conflict 
with the constitution and laws of California, 

"Resolved, therefore, That we, the miners of Springfield 
Mining District, do ordain and establish the following 

" RULES AND REGULATIONS. 

"Article 1. A claim for mining purposes within this 
district shall not exceed one hundred feet square to each 
man, nor be more than one hundred feet in length. 

" Art. 2. That no man within the boundaries of this 
district shall hold more than one workable claim. 

"Art. 3. That each and every man within the bounds 
of this district shall perform actual labor uj)on said 
claim one day out of every three, or employ a substitute; 
otherwise such claim shall be forfeited : Provided that 
claims on dry gulches, or other places, that can be worked 
advantageously only by water companies, etc., shall be 
good until water is brought in: Provided also, that wet 
claims and carting claims not workable in the rainy season 
shall be good also without working from the 15th of No- 
vember till the 15th of May. 

"Art. 4. The bounds of claims shall be established 
and defined by putting up good and substantial stakes at 
each corner, and recording the description of the lot in the 
precinct registry; and by putting up one notice at each end 
of the claim, signed by each person or individual of tie 
company; and the names of the several persons holdirg 
such claim shall be signed in their own handwriting, in tJe 
book of registry. 



HISTOKY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 141 

" Art. 5. When two or more clairas join together, and 
are worked by companies, such companies can work any 
portion of such claims as they deem expedient, complying 
with Article 3. 

" Art. 6. Disputes concerning claims shall be settled by 
referring them to a standing committee of five, or by arbi- 
tration, or by jury. Each member of the standing com- 
mittee, who may arbitrate on any case, shall be paid two 
dollars for such service. 

"Art. 12. In case of sickness, no miner shall forfeit 
his claim. 

"Art. 14. All companies going to great expense in 
running tunnels, in order to prospect the hills, shall be en- 
titled to two claims, each person of a company. 

" Art. 15. A Recorder of this District shall be chosen, 
and shall be paid fifty cents for recording the title of each 
mining claim. The Recorder shall have the custody of 
the books, laws and proceedings of this mining district. 

" Art. 16. All foreigners subject to pay a foreign 
miners' tax, when called upon to show their license, and 
cannot or will not do the same, shall not be permitted to 
hold a claim in this mining district; and any such claim, 
purporting to be held by him, or them, shall be forfeited. 

" Jural Harrington, President. 

"J. W. Glass, Secretary." 

These simple laws, with a few of less importance which 
it is deemed unnecessary to reproduce, were found amply 
sufficient for the maintenance of order in the important 
district of Springfield; and equally simjsle and concise were 
the rules and regulations of other districts. Of course 
they were but a makeshift, serving to bridge over the time 
until the legislative bodies of the State or Nation should 



142 HISTORY OT TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 

make such enactments as should serve in their stead. It is 
to be observed that these primitive regulations did not in 
any case look towards a final settlement of the important 
questions which agitated the mining communities. It was, 
as already observed, with a view of influencing the authori- 
ties to make such a settlement of these questions, that con- 
ventions, so called, of miners, were held; and it is of the 
celebrated convention at Jamestown, that met on tlie 8th of 
September, 1852, that the following facts are preserved. 

The body of delegates, one hundred and ninety in num- 
ber, organized by clioosing J. M. Mandeville president, 
and L. L. Alexander secretary. Then proceeding to busi- 
ness, they adopted a series of resolutions, directed to the 
consideration of the peojDle and of the legislative bodies, 
deploring the past inaction of the miners, and recommend- 
ing such legislation as in their opinion would remedy the 
then existing state of insecurity; adding, that the natural- 
ization laws should not be so construed as to embrace 
withi)! its scope the motlej- races from Asia, Polynesia and 
South America. They declared it the plain duty of the 
Legislature of the State to pass laws to impede and obstruct 
the immigration of the last named classes; recommending 
that, in order to effect that purpose, a hospital tax of five 
hundred dollars should be levied upon each such objec- 
tionable immigrant. 

These resolutions, with others, proclaiming among other 
things that the legislation of the State had previously been 
only for the benefit of the capitalist, and not for that of the 
miner, and that the miners of Tuolumne would look there- 
after upon those only as true friends who used their en- 
deavors to procure legislation in correspondence with the 
ideas advanced, were unanimously adopted; as also were 
another series of this tenor: 

"Whereas, it is deemed necessary to take immediate 



HISTORY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 143 

action to drive the coolies from some of our mining dis- 
tricts; therefore, 

" Besolved, that we recommend to the miners of the 
various mining districts to take such steps as will rid us of 
the same. 

'^Resolved, that this Convention pledges the aid and sup- 
port of those whom they represent, if needed, to remove 
said coolies and other foreigners." 

The Convention, after adopting an "Address to the 
Miners of California," adjourned. 

Only in part have the suggestions then laid before the 
governing bodies been adopted. Congress, after years of 
delay, provided suitable laws for the disposition of the 
United States' mineral domain, but, with the most utter 
disregard for the moral interests of California, it has dallied 
and hesitated over the crying evil of Chinese immigration 
until almost too great to be borne, while legislation of the 
kind calculated to settle the question forever seems further 
off than in 1852. 

It is an interesting subject to trace the moral effects of 
such meetings as these; interesting though difficult, for 
many causes may have combined to induce the legislation 
and the views that now prevail, though that fact does not 
detract from the importance of these waves of popular feel- 
ing, which, emanating from minds the ablest and most 
vigorous of the century, remain attractive reminiscences of 
history, attesting to the growth of thought and intelligence 
rife among a people wrought upon by the most unique sur- 
roundings, which surroundings themselves have something 
of the sternness and even of the poetry that alone have 
been able to inspire the action and thought characteristic 
of the strong-minded people who make history, and lay the 
foundation of States as the enduring remains of their great- 
ness. 



144 HISTOEY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 

Inner Life of the Miners. 

Thus far iu this work but little mention has been made 
of the inner life of the miner. That subject, now of en- 
grossing interest, has furnished the inspiration of many an 
article by Californian and other poets and prose writers, who 
have in this found a treasure-house from whence may be 
drawn an unceasing store of incident suited for elaboration 
by the graceful pen of a Harte, a Clemens or a Miller. But 
it is not the heroic or the poetical aspects of life that the 
sober requirements of history must affect. A more fitting 
subject for the moment is the narrative of how the miners 
passed their time in the winter. 

The inhabitants of the Atlantic States and of the cities 
of California, and even the earlier immigrants to the mines, 
first imagined that the rainy season, corresponding as it did 
to the cold, dreary winter of the East, was of necessity the 
most disagreeable and unremunerative portion of the year 
to those engaged in mining. In the earlier years in which 
this industry was prosecuted, a succession of severe win- 
ters, coupled to the added disadvantage of the total want 
of roads, rendered the mines at times totally inaccessible. 
Famine, in consequence, was seriously feared, and the 
fashion then became common of retiring to the towns near 
San Francisco Bay, iu order to pass that portion of the year. 

This erroneous custom became abandoned in the succeed- 
ing years, wlieu the fact was demonstrated that a far greater 
portion of the mining ground was workable during the wet 
season than at any other time. During the dry season 
most of the land surface was above the influence of the 
running streams, around which were gathered the majority 
of the population. On the hillsides and elevated table-lands 
water was rarely to be found, the ground was baked to its 
hardest, and the labor of prospecting was found burden- 



\s 







HI8T0EY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 145 

some and disagreeable. When winter came, a new direc- 
tion was given to the exertions of every miner. They then 
forsook the river beds and the coyote diggings, and spread- 
ing themselves over the surface of the country, took ad- 
vantage of every little pool of water and every running 
streamlet, to minister to the desired end. The most provi- 
dent, not wandering aimlessly, had before prospected and 
found a deposit of " pay dirt," near which they had erected 
a cabin and provided themselves with a store of food suffi- 
cient to last through their winter labors. The situation of 
those whose wise foresight had dictated such a course was 
not only tolerable, but was far superior to that of the labor- 
ing class in the cities. 

Winter and spring were, and are, preeminently the most 
favorable seasons for placer mining, and they were, in ad- 
dition, the most pleasant in the life of the gold-digger. It 
was never too cold for outdoor work. There were doubt- 
less days when the intensity of the rain, or the presence at 
rare intervals of snow, made it disagreeable; but doubtless 
the heat of summer was a far more unpleasant circumstance. 
And when, after the hours of exhausting, though often 
profitable and pleasant, toil were over, the miner repaired 
to his stout log hut, where, with plentiful though rough 
fare spread before him, and a cheerful fire blazing on his 
hearth, he was moved to pity the less favored inhabitants 
of those localities where daily toil was insufficient to procure 
comfort and abundance. Then it was that, amid the com- 
panionship only of bearded men, often the chance acquaint- 
ances of a week or month, he sighed for the society which 
was his at a former day, and longed to see around him the 
well remembered faces which he might never look upon 
again. Then was it that the husband resolved to devote 
his earnings to the darling object of removing hither the 
natural and affectionate partner of his toils; and then did 



146 mSTORT OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 

the victim of single-blessedness make up his mind to return 
home for a while, that he might bring back some loved one 
towards whom his heart yearned in former days. 

During the long winter evenings the miner enjoyed, bet- 
ter than at other times, the opportunities for rational de- 
lights. If he has had the forethought and the good taste 
to have provided himself with books, papers, pens and ink, 
he then had the opportunities of passing the time with good 
and lasting effects, besides making himself comfortable 
through their agency. He then indited long letters home, 
or read such volumes as by accident found their way to this 
secluded region; or, if his lot happened to be cast among 
congenial spirits, he sat and whiled the time away with 
conversation and song, diversified, perhaps, with a friendly 
game of cards or similar amusement. Hapj)y they who 
spent their leisure time in their own log cabin after this 
fashion, rather than at the drinking-house, the gambling 
table, or the dancing saloon! 

It is repugnant to man's nature to live a life of solitari- 
ness. So those pioneers found, although they endured it 
for a time, that their bright hopes for the future might have 
fruition. Thus it was with most in California. They toiled 
and suffered many privations, that their bright dreams of 
future happiness might become true; but as the years went 
on and the advantages of the new land became more appa- 
rent, many were brought to think that all desirable happi- 
ness could be created here ; that they could rebuild the 
homes that had perished with the scattering of their fami- 
lies, or transplant those whom a kinder fate still preserved 
on the old homesteads. So believing, some began to gather 
around them the ties for which they yearned; the family 
altar and the household gods began to be reared in the 
land, and the good old times began before many a cottage 
hearth to be raised from among the buried years. 



HISTORY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 147 

Not for all was this liappy fate reserved; many a one had 
left all the endearments of home, and, with a heart buoyant 
with expectations, sought the far-off land of gold. The 
clank of his pick had been heard in its rugged ravines, his 
merry laugh had rung upon the hills, and life went pros- 
perously on until Death's unfeeling hand beckoned him 
from the busy ranks of life. Disease prostrated his manly 
form; upon a rude couch, within a narrow tent, withont 
the gentle, pain-dispelling hand of woman about his sleep- 
less couch, he wasted away. When the icy arms of Death 
were thrown around him, chilling life's warm current, no 
father or mother was there to smooth his rough passage 
with their prayers; no wife, sister nor brother stood by 
him as he contended with the fell monster. No sobbing 
mourners followed in his funeral train, no church bell 
tolled lor his departure, or gray-haired j^astor chanted the 
prayer for the departed; a few comrades bore him to the 
lonely spot where he now rests. 

His blanket was his winding-sheet, the cold, harsh clods 
his coffin lid; his little tent stood empty and alone; the 
pickax and shovel lay idly by; his merry voice was heard 
no more among the hills; the old hearth at home had one 
less around it, for his place in the family circle was for- 
ever vacant. Where he sleeps, no sculptured marble marks 
the place, no tombstone rears its head; the hands of love 
have planted no flowers at his grave that the tears of affec- 
tion might water. Yet the lone grave of the miner has its 
watchers, and the sun shines on it bright and warm. 



The Execution of Bruce. 

On Friday, December 8, 1854, Robert Bruce was hanged 
at Sonora, for the murder of a Mexican Indian boy, of six- 
teen. The murder took place in Sonora the previous year. 



148 HISTORY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 

and was committed during a brawl in a fandango-house. 
Bruce was immediately arrested, tried and convicted, but 
owing to the law's delays, more than a year passed before 
his execution. In the meanwhile the criminal, in company 
with another convicted felon, named Haj'es, broke jail, and, 
aided by the darkness, got as far as che vicinity of Burns' 
Ferry, where they were discovered by the pursuing party. 
In the attempt to arrest them, Bruce was severely wounded. 
Being returned to the county jail, a day was set for the 
execution, on which Bruce was to suffer, together with his 
brother convict, Thomas Crooks, also under sentence for 
committing a murder. Four days before the appointed 
time, the sentence of the latter was commuted by Governor 
Bigler to ten years' imprisonment, the ameliorating cause 
being that Crooks was suffering from an attack of delinuvi 
tremens at. the time of the murder. 

On Friday, the people from the surrounding camps began 
at an early hour to make their way to the jDlace of execu- 
tion, and by noon the largest assemblage thus far seen in 
Tuolumne County had gathered. Just at noon Bruce was 
taken from the jail, placed in a carriage, in which the 
Sheriff and other officers were seated, and escorted to the 
place of execution, by the two military companies of Tuol- 
umne, the . Sonora Grays and the Columbia Fusiliers. 
Arriving at the gallows, the doomed man alighted from the 
carriage and ascended the steps to the platform, with a 
firm and determined tread, exhibiting a stoical indifference 
to life, which he maintained throughout the whole proceed- 
ings. The Sheriff read the death warrant, and intimated 
to him that he could then speak if he wished. Bruce arose 
composedly and made a short speech, declaring his inno- 
cence, and stating that some witnesses for the people had 
sworn his life away. At the close of his few remarks, the 
Rev. Mr. Evans, pastor of the M. E. Church South, at 



HISTOBT OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 149 

Sonera, performed religious services and pronounced an 
appropriate address. Bruce then took leave of his friends 
and of the of&cers of the law and the bystanders. His 
hands and feet were tied, the rope adjusted around his 
neck, and at fifteen minutes before one o'clock the trap- 
door fell, and all that remained of Robert Bruce was a 
corpse suspended from the gallows. 

Although this was, as before remarked, the largest assem- 
blage ever yet held in Tuolumne County, yet the utmost 
decorum and good order prevailed throughout, and no 
untoward scenes occurred to mar the solemnity of tha 
occasion. 

So died the second person who suffered death at the 
hands of the law in the fair city of Sonora. Two previous 
executions there had been, but of these, one — that of Jim 
Hill — was by mob law, as has already been described. 

The first man who died in obedience to the outraged 
laws of the land was Jose Corrales, who was hanged in 
Sonora January 7, 1852, for the crime of horse-stealing, 
the law of that time providing the death penalty for that 
offense. This man's execution was witnessed by a great 
crowd, but which was a most orderly assemblage. Previous 
to his death, the convict confessed his guilt, and seemed 
resigned to the fate which awaited him. This execution 
would seem to have created a less impression upon the pub- 
lic than such scenes usually do, for the newspaper accounts 
of the affair were exceedingly meager. 



Murder of Parrot by Peter Nicholas. 

The particulars of this murder, and the subsequent at- 
tempts to lynch the aggressor, have remained in the memory 
of the old Tuolumneites until now, when they are gathered 
from the narratives of various persons — now appearing as 
follows: 



150 HISTORY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 

Ou Sunday, November 13, 1858, an Austrian named Peter 
Nicholas, from Sawmill Flat, visited Columbia, and becom- 
ing intoxicated and quarelsome, sought a difficulty with 
Captain John Parrot, from Pine Log, but formerly from 
Gloucester, Massachusetts. Parrot strove to avoid his as- 
sailant, replying to him calmly and endeavoring to remove 
his hands from his (Parrot's) throat. Stepping backward, 
he fell; upon which the Austrian sprang upon him and 
thrust his bowie knife into the neck of the prostrate man, 
making a wound which jaenetrated into the cavity of the 
chest, and from which recovery was impossible. Medical 
treatment only served to prolong his life until the Friday 
following, when he died. The parties had been perfect 
strangers to each other up to the time of the murder, and 
no palliating circumstances whatever attended the killing. 

Immediately upon the conclusion of the bloody deed, 
Nicholas, still drunk, and with the bloody knife still in his 
grasp, was arrested by citizens and handed over to the au- 
thorities, and by them removed to the jail (a permanent 
institution in Columbia), and there confined until the fol- 
lowing morning, when he was examined belore Justice 
Carley and committed to await the result of his victim's 
wound. Before his removal from the Justice's office could 
be effected a large crowd had assembled, among whom 
were many miners from Pine Log, neighbors of the 
wounded man, all of whom had evidently resolved upon 
rescuing the prisoner from the officer and summarily 
stringing him up. The prisoner was loudly demanded by 
the ever-growing mob, and active measures began to be 
taken to defeat their intentions. Constable Connor swore 
in a posse of special Constables, and the prisoner was 
chained to staples driven into the Court-room floor. But 
these precautions were absolutely of no avail, for, at a sig- 
nal, the officers were secured, the staples drawn out by 



HISTORY OF TUOLTTMNE COtlNTY, 151 

means of a pick, and the prisoner was thrown or dragged 
out of the house and passed along over the heads of the 
dense crowd, now thoroughly infuriated; thence he was 
borne along Broadway, by the efforts of men, some of 
whom held to him by the hair, by the arms, legs, or any 
available grip, until a convenient pine tree was reached in 
the rear of Van Guljoen's store. A rope was speedily pro- 
cured, thrown over a limb, and the prisoner would have 
immediately met his deserts had it not been for the timely 
interference of Mr. James Coffroth and others, who made 
appeals to the multitude to grant a fair trial, which, after 
much parley, was acceded to, and the multitude, now in- 
creased from hundreds to thousands, moved toward G-old 
Hill as a convenient spot for the proceedings. 

On arriving at Gold Hill, Dan. Patterson was appointed 
Sheriff with several deputies, a jury was impaneled, con- 
sisting of four men from Pine Log and eight from Colum- 
bia, and including some of the most respected citizens. 
At this juncture Major Solomon, the Sheriff of Tuolumne 
county, and a most efficient officer, arrived, and addressing 
the people, urged them to obey the laws, and demanded 
that the prisoner should be given up to him. Mr. Coffroth 
followed in his support, but in spite of all the efforts of 
the law and order portion of the crowd, it was resolved to 
retain possession of the man and try him, and if found 
guilty, to hang him without delay. Acting under this de- 
termination, the assemblage directed the jurors to be 
sworn, and appointed Thomas N. Cazneau as prosecuting 
attorney, while Mr. Coffroth and Col. Gillespie were to de- 
fend the prisoner. Meanwhile Deputy Sheriff Randall 
(now of the Union Democrat) had arrived, and acting upon 
his suggestion, a force of men who had just got in from 
Sonora in aid of the Sheriff were posted near the prisoner, 
and a signal agreed upon at which he might be seized. 



162 HISTORY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 

placed upoD a horse stationed within reach, and hurried 
away from the scene. To do this required many minutes 
of preparation, during which Mr. Coffroth, who had been 
made acq uainted with the plot, filled in the time by mak- 
ing an extended harangue to the multitude while acting in 
his capacity of defendant's counsel. He spoke for half an 
hour upon the evil e£fects of mob law, and eloquently ex- 
horted the assemblage to stand by the officers of their own 
choice, the dignity of the town and county, etc. At the 
close of his remarks the jury retired, returning in a quar- 
ter of an hour with the following verdict: 

"We the jury find the prisoner guilty of assault and 
battery with intent to kill Captain John Parrot; but as 
Parrot is not yet dead, they agree that the prisoner shall 
be given up to the civil authorities." 

The wildest excitement followed. " Hang him!" " String 
him up!" " Give him to the Sheriff!" was heard issuing 
from hundreds of mouths. A vote was being taken to 
ratify the decision of the jury, when, deeming it a propi- 
tious moment, Messrs. fSolomon, Randall and their backers 
charged upon the crowd, broke their way to the prisoner, 
hustled him out, mounted him upon a horse, all manacled 
as he was, and mounting their own animals rode rapidly 
toward Sonora. The^multitude, surprised at this unlooked- 
for proceeding, pursued the retreating horsemen but a 
short distance and returned, muttering, to their claims. 
Thus ended the second chapter in this notorious murder. 

Incarcerated in the jail at'Sonora, the murderer awaited 
his trial; which coming, he was convicted of murder in 
the first degree and sentenced by the redoubtable Judge 
Creaner to death. Before the day set for execution, how- 
ever, his sentence was commuted, by an over- indulgent 
Governor, to seven years* imprisonment. 

In connection with this commutation of sentence a curi- 



raSTORY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 153 

OU8 story is told, viz: that Horace Bull, Nicholas' Attorney, 
and a lawyer prominent for his shrewdness, eccentricities 
and peculiar moral tendencies, finding all efforts to secure 
a new trial useless, hit upon a device for securing the Gov- 
ernor's clemency. This was, in short, to cut off all the 
names signed to an address thanking Judge Creaner for his 
upright protectiDg influence, or something of that sort, 
which had been circulated extensively, and appending 
these autograph signatures, many of them of very promi- 
nent and influential gentlemen, to a prayer for executive 
clemency to the Governor, in the case of Nicholas. 

Thescheme, as now told, succeeded, and Nicholas escaped 
his merited doom. 

This story, often told, has become one of the traditions, 
but like many another, it is apocryphal, and must be taken 
with a grain of salt. 



The Heslep Murder. 

Perhaps no more terrible tragedy ever occurred in the 
mines of California than the one which it is the duty of the 
writer here to describe. Blood-thirsty and cruel beyond 
all precedent, it roused the people to a state of almost un- 
paralleled excitement and even frenzy. It was peculiar in 
the singularity of the mode in which the deed was com- 
mitted, and doubly so in the suddenness with which the 
assassin met his reward. It would be difficult, in all the 
annals of crime, to trace its parallel. The community be- 
held a man universally respected, trusted and loved, the 
guardian of the county's treasury, and the esteemed busi- 
ness associate of the intelligent and enterprising merchants 
of the day, struck down and done to death by the hand of 
one who owed his welfare, and even his daily bread, to the 
generosity of his victim. 



154 HISTORY OF TTJOLUMNE COUNTY. 

The murderer's object was money, the basest of all in- 
centives to crime, but fruitless were his hopes, for eight 
hours from the time that last saw Joseph Heslep in life, his 
slayer too was sent by a just, though unequal punishment, 
to the bar of eternal justice. 

Mr. Heslep, in his capacity as Treasurer, had an office on 
Hospital street, in Sonora. Here were kept the books and 
papers relating both to the county's affairs and to his own 
private business. The office contained two rooms, in the 
outer of which the safe and a writing desk were located. 
In the inner one there were certain articles of furniture, 
notably a wash-stand, with bowl. "Within the safe were a 
portion of the county funds, amounting to somewhat over 
seven thousand dollars in gold coin. In order to a full 
understanding of the subject, it should be said that the 
safe and the writing-desk stood at the side of the room op- 
posite the door, and the latter was in such a position that a 
person engaged in writing would necessarily sit, or stand, 
with his back to the outer door, which opened on Hospital 
street, nearly opposite Mr. Bradford's present office, but 
rather nearer to Washington street. 

At 9 o'clock in the evening of January 18, 1855, Mr. 
McBirnie, a member of the firm of Bell & McBirnie, the 
Court House contractors, having business to transact, en- 
tered Mr. Heslep's,office through the closed but not fastened 
door, and in the intense darkness groped his way to the 
mantel, over the fire-place, at the further side of the apart- 
ment, in search of matches wherewith to light the lamp or 
candles, presumably in their accustomed place. As he 
reached the mantel, his feet struck against an object on the 
floor. Hastily striking a match, he turned to examine the 
obstruction, when the flickering brimstone showed to his 
horrified gaze the form of Joseph Heslep, his blood — his 
very brains — oozing through half a score of wounds upon 



HISTORY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 155 

his head. The stoutest heart, the firmest nerve, could not 
endure more than one glance at the awful shadow, and the 
discoverer flew from the dread sight, never again to forget 
what that one glance shoAved him. 

No words can do justice to the extreme excitement that 
arose in saloons, in stores and in hotels, when that white- 
faced man, peering in, gave utterance to his tidings. In- 
stantly a great commotion arose, and a swarm of men hur- 
ried to the scene of the catastrophe. The truth of the 
news being verified, the first impulse, the invariable one at 
that day, in all scenes of unusual gravity, was to hold a 
meeting. This was done in front of the office where the 
bloody corpse lay, and by the light of a bonfire burning in 
the street, measures were taken to apprehend the murderer. 
The body, yet warm, gave evidence that the deed was but 
recently committed, while there were men who had seen 
Mr. Heslep in health but a few short hours before. Mes- 
sengers mounted on fleet horses were immediately dis- 
patched to each of the ferries in the county to stop the 
egress of suspected parties. 

In the meantime the proper officials summoned a Coro- 
ner's jury to deliberate upon the tragedy, and a full exam- 
ination of the premises and of the murdered man was made, 
the jury sitting for six hours, and eliciting the following 
facts : 

Dr. Manning, the examining surgeon, reported that the 
deceased had received eight wounds upon the head, with 
an axe; that the skull was crushed at the crown, and that 
some of the brains were scattered upon the floor; and blows 
had been inflicted on each of the temples, either of which 
was severe enough to have caused death. The awful dis- 
figurement of the face of the dead was such as to have pre- 
vented recognition, had the remains been found in other 
surroundings. The nose was broken, and the countenance 



156 HISTORY OF TUOLUMKE COUNTY. 

generally was horribly mangled; but what gave a still more 
brutal character to the work, was the fact that the mouth, 
the throat, and the nostrils were staffed ivith paper — the very 
refinement of brutality, as it was evident that it was done 
during the time that the deceased was still living. 

Slight susi^icions of McBiruie, amid the uncertainty and 
turmoil, developed into nothing. The man who did the 
act was as unknown to the people as if he had never lived, 
and would have so remained had it not been for the acci- 
dental acuteness of Constable Sam Phillips. This officer, 
who had attended the examination, had observed there the 
attitude and replies of one of the witnesses, one Griffiths, 
who, it appeared, had been last seen in the office, convers- 
ing with Mr. Heslep. Examined and reexamined, no ques- 
tion had shaken his testimony nor disturbed his coolness. 
He testified coolly and straightforwardly as to his knowl- 
edge of the murdered man's proceedings that evening, and 
by no word had it been made to appear that the guilt of 
murder was upon his soul. During, however, his second 
or third examination, and while still sitting within the 
room where the jury were. Deputy Sheriff Randall and Con- 
stable Phillips entered the room, the latter calling the at- 
tention of the officers and jury to a valise which he held in 
bis hands. As soon as Griffith caught sight of the valise, 
recognizing it, he exclaimed, " Ask me no more questions; 
I am the guilty man!" At this declaration, accompanied 
as it was with dramatic coolness, the bystanders were para- 
-lyzed with excitement. Constable Phillips and Deputy 
Randall then related how they had visited the room of the 
accused at the United States Hotel, where, concealed within 
the blankets of his bunk, they found the blood-stained 
garments, fresh clots of gore still remaining undried upon 
them, and these pressed into a valise, the heavy overcoat 
alone being placed under the pillow. Within the pockets 



HISTORY OF TTJOLUMNE COUNTY. 157 

of the latter garment were over six thousand dollars in gold 
coin — the greater part of the sum which the safe contained; 
it appearing that the murderer thought himself unable to 
carry away the whole — so leaving about a thousand dollars 
untouched. 

At this point of the proceedings, alarm bells were rung, 
and those of the citizens -who had retired from the scene 
again assembled in front of the office. The situation of 
affairs was told to them, and resolutions were passed de- 
claring that the prisoner should die at daybreak, there be- 
ing not one dissenting voice. Remaining by the bonfire 
all night, with the doomed man pinioned in their midst, 
the crowd at daybreak made preparations to hang him. 
Sheriff Solomon made an ineffectual attempt to gain pos- 
session of him, but without the slightest avail, as he was 
alone in the midst of a vast and determined assemblage, 
which had firmly resolved on the man's death. No earthly 
power could save him. Cognizant of the fact that his 
earthly hours were short, Griffiths occupied himself in 
writing letters to his wife, who was iu San Jose, and in 
making confession of his crime to his custodians. Besides 
the statements embraced in his confession, the following 
facts were evolved subsequently : 

Griffiths, upon his arrival in California, found himself 
without money or friends. In this strait, he was assisted 
by a gentleman of San Jose, a brother of his victim, who 
supplied him with the means to get to the mines, and also 
providing him with letters of recommendation to his brother 
Joseph, who, equally openhanded and hospitable, sup- 
ported this stranger until he could establish him, as he 
finallj did, in placer mining; also supplying lumber, with 
which to build a cabin. These facts only make the villainy 
of the crime more conspicuous, contrasting it with the 
generosity of the murdered man. 



158 HISTORY OP TUOLUMNE COUNTT. 

This is the oral confession of Gri£&ths: 

" Mj name is Edward Crane Griffiths. I was born in 
Liverpool, England, in 1824. I went to Ireland when a 
boy, and have been at sea since I was eleven years of age. 
I first went to Callao, then to Panama, by steamer, and 
then came to San Francisco. I was in San Francisco since, 
until I came to Sonora, which was previous to New year's 
day. First conceived the design of the murder last night. 
I asked Mr. Heslep to loan me some money. He had a 
bag of money, containing gold and silver, which he had 
taken from a partition in his desk. When I asked deceased 
to loan me the money he refused. I then placed my hand 
on the bag, with no intention of taking it; ujjon which he 
arose and struck me in the breast. My blood being aroused, 
I immediately picked up the ax and struck deceased with 
it upon the temple; then struck again with it, two or three 
times, when he was down. He continued to make a noise, 
and I then put the paper in his nostrils and mouth. I 
then took the bag, and key which he had in his hand, un- 
locked the safe, and took the gold out of it. I then re- 
placed the key of the safe upon the table, blew out the 
light, and left the house. Was not occupied more than 
five minutes in the business. I went to my room, where I 
placed the money, changed my pantaloons, and walked 
out. I Went down to the Long Tom, and soon returned to 
Mr. Heslep's office, in which time the murder had been 
discovered. 

"When I placed my hand upon the bag I had no inten- 
tion to take the money, but did it in more of a joke than 
anything else. I said to Mr. Heslep, 'Yoa may as well 
lend me this.' When I saw that I had killed him, I took 
the money, for then I thought I could make the matter no 
worse. The paper that I put in his mouth I got from the 
table. Five minutes before doing it I had no idea of com- 
mitting the act. 



HISTOKT OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 159 

" I acknowledge this to be the whole truth, and make this 
confession of my own free will and accord, without any 
fear, threats, or compulsion from any person. This is 
made before the Coroner's Jury, at fitteen minutes before 
two A. M., Friday, 19th of January, A. D. 1855. 

E. C. Griffiths." 

At daylight the last act of this dreadful tragedy came. 
Carried to an oak tree, of which the trunk is yet to be 
seen standing on Mr. Bemis' City Hotel lot, the guilty 
wretch was suspended and left to die without a sympathiz- 
ing word or look from the community from which his 
blood-thirsty hand had removed a beloved and useful mem- 
ber. 

So ended an eventful night, the recollections of which 
are burnt into the brain of every one of the many surviving 
actors and spectators, never to be forgotten until the earth 
shall close over their honored heads. 

In order to show the general esteem in which the mur- 
dered man was held, and also the manner in which his 
untimely taking-off was regarded, the newspaper report of 
a citizens' meeting to " take into consideration the prema- 
ture and violent death of Joseph Heslep, Esq. 

" On motion, Gr. W. Patrick (Mayor of Sonora) was ap- 
pointed Chairman, and H. G. Worthington, Secretary. 

"On motion, L. L. Alexander, Dr. Adams, E. Linoberg, 
Mr. Kutherford and Major P. McD. Collins, were appointed 
a committee to draw up suitable resolutions. 

" On motion it was recommended to the citizens that all 
business be suspended during the passage of the corpse 
through the streets to the place of interment. 

" The committee on resolutions reported the following, 
which were read and adopted: 

" 'Truly, it has been said, 'In the midst of life we are in 
death.' 'The noblest work of God, an honest man,' has 



160 HISTORY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 

been cut off from among us; Joseph Heslep, Esq., Deputy 
Treasurer of Tuolumne county, is dead — murdered by the 
man whom he had befriended. 

" ' Resolved, That in the death of our friend, the whole 
community has suffered a loss which it is impossible to re- 
pair; each of us has lost a friend, a neighbor, and the 
county an honest and faithful public servant. 

" ' Resolved, That we truly condole with the brothers, 
and the family relations of the deceased, in the great loss 
they have sustained, in a brother, a father and a friend. 

" 'Resolved, That out of respect to the deceased we rec- 
ommend that the whole community go into mourning and 
attend his remains to their last resting place on Sunday 
next. 

On motion it was 

" 'Resolved, That the proceedings of this meeting be pub- 
lished in the various papers of this county. 

' ' ' Resolved, That the Secretary furnish the family and 
friends of the deceased, in San Francisco and elsewhere, 
with a copy of the proceedings of this meeting. 

Gr. W. Patrick, President. 

H. Gr. WoRTHiNGTON, Secretary. 



Walker's Expedition. 

In order to bring the history of the county for the year 
1854 to a fitting conclusion, it will be necessary to mention 
a few additional events of importance. These are the divi- 
sion of the county and Walker's expedition to Lower Cali- 
fornia. 

Of the former event there is little to say, except that at 
that time it was imagined that an inevitable imcompati- 
bility must exist between agriculture and mining, to the 
extent that the interest of those devoted to the one must 



! 



HISTORY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 161 

necessarily suffer from too intimate a connection with those 
pursuing the other. Whether this view was well founded 
or not, an amicable dissolution of interests followed, and 
the agricultural Eve, Stanislaus, was formed from a rib of 
her predecessor, and has remained contentedly apart ever 
since, having no connection with her other half, except as 
to serving, perhaps, as a convenient pasture for Tuolumne's 
lost live-stock. 

In June, 1854, these divorce proceedings were consum- 
mated, Stanislaus holding the first separate county election 
on the 10th of that month. 



Additional Events of 1850. 

Not a little enthusiasm was aroused in the mines by the 
circumstances of the ill-fated expeditions of " The Gray- 
eyed Man of Destiny." The first of these, in which 
Walker for a time overthrew the Mexican power in the 
States of Sonora and Lower California, assuming the 
powers and the title of President of the so-called " Re- 
public," formed from those States, drew away many of the 
more ambitious or restless spirits from their work in the 
diggings, to dare fortune in another land. To all of these 
the sternest of adverse fates happened; hardly one ever 
returned to tell the story of his wanderings. Many men, 
once prominent in the mining regions of Tuolumne, thus 
departed. But a still deeper and most pathetic interest 
was aroused on account of the Nicaragua expedition* 
Joined by men of all classes and all situations in society. 
Walker fought and bled and died in their midst, his last 
brave end drawing a curtain over the foolish and impracti- 
cable attempt, shutting it in part from the rough criticism 
of the outer world. Good blood, mustered in distant re- 
gions, and coming, some of it, to its full brightness and 



162 HISTORY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTT. 

strength by the banks of the Tuolumne and the Stanislaus, 
was poured out as freely as the leader's own, to be drunk 
up by the soil of a land whose sons, in their new-found 
strength, wielded well the sword when they strove for lib- 
erty. Aside from the fact that many of Tuolumne's adven- 
turous inhabitants joined the raiding forces, the expedi- 
tions do not present any matter for the present considera- 
tion of the readers of this volume, but it is an unfortunate 
circumstance that an accurate and complete list of those 
who went from here on that tragical errand cannot now be 
made out. 



Ditch Matters and Miners' Strike. 

In the Fall of 1854, the " Columbia and Stanislaus Kiver 
Water Company " was formed for the object of bringing 
water for mining purposes into the chief placer diggings of 
Tuolumne, notably into those of the region in and about 
Columbia. The immediate causes that led to the com- 
mencement of the work was the insufficiency of the then 
existing ditches to supply the requisite quantity, and also 
the excessive prices charged by those in operation. 

At a meeting of the stockholders of the new company, 
held September 2G, 1854, in Columbia, the following 
named gentlemen were elected officers to serve for one year: 
Directors— J. W. Coffroth (President), G. W. Whitman, S. 
Ingersoll, James McLean, John Jolly, S. Knapp and Dr. 
Windier; Secretary — T. N. Cazneau; Treasurer — W. Daeg- 
ener (of Wells, Fargo & Co.'s Express); Superintendent — 
A. Fletcher; Engineer — T. L. Trask. 

At this meeting the Engineer's report of his survey of 
the proposed route of the ditch was presented, and from 
its pages some interesting particulars of the truly great 
work are to be gleaned. 



HISTORY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 163 

The route surveyed by him was twenty odd miles in 
length, the canal at various epochs since having been 
lengthened to the distance of sixty miles, it being one of 
the longest and most important hydraulic works of the kind 
ever constructed by man. 

Commencing at the farthest limits of the first survey, the 
first eight miles of the line passed over a deep, heavy loam, 
covered with a dense growth of pine timber. The ground 
was easy of excavation and in every way adapted to the 
requirements of canal building. Upon this part of the 
route but few portions required to be flumed. 

The next section, reaching downward to Rocky Bluff, 
passed over a broken country, a considerable portion of 
which required to be flumed. 

The remaining portion of the route, nine and a half 
miles in length, required fluming entirely. Upon this sec- 
tion were three high bluffs to pass around, but not of great 
length. 

Of the twenty-one miles of ditch, the lower end of which 
was at Columbia, twelve miles required to be flumed, the 
remaining nine miles being excavated. 

As for timber for the construction and support of flumes, 
no route was ever better supplied. Along nearly the en- 
tire route there was abundant growth of pine, fir and other 
woods, in all respects adapted to such uses. The cedar, 
too, invaluable for its lasting qualities, grows in the upper 
sections. 

In regard to the cost, the Engineer expressed the opin- 
ion that it would not aggregate a sum over three hundred 
and fifty thousand dollars, for bringing the water of the 
Main Fork of the Stanislaus into Columbia or Sonora. 
The Engineer was of the opinion, hardly borne out since 
in practice, that there was an amount of water in the Main 
Fork equal to all demands, being in the dryest seasons not 
less than four or five hundred tom streams. 



164 HISTORY OF TUOLUMNE C0UNT7. 

From this source alone, concluded the Engineer, it was 
possible to obtain an adequate supply; for the only other 
sufficient stream was the South Fork of the Tuolumne, to 
obtain the water from which would require works almost 
rivaling the Great Canal of China, the country being 
almost impassable. 

Having now formed their company, the work was pro- 
ceeded with. But owing to financial and other hindrances, 
little was accomplished until the next Spring, when certain 
stirring events took place, involving the interests of the 
miners, the water companies, and, in fact, of all the 
county. 

The high prices, heretofore alluded to, still held sway, 
and the whole mining population dependent upon the 
Tuolumne County "Water Company, observing the indiflfer- 
ence to their interests manifested by that corporation, and 
thinking themselves unfairly treated, began in March, 1855, 
to take measures to secure such a condition of things as 
would redound more to their own interests . 

On the 3d of that month, a meeting of the miners of 
Columbia and vicinity was held at Major Farnsworth's 
saloon, and organizing, a committee was appointed to wait 
upon the T, C. W. Co., and request them to reduce the 
price of water to four dollars per day for each tom stream. 
This done, the meeting adjourned for one week. 

At the adjourned meeting the committee reported that a 
petition had been circulated among the miners, to which 
about one thousand signatures had been attached, and that 
the same had been laid before the Trustees of the Water 
Company, and a reply received from the Board. The fol- 
lowing was the correspondence: 
" To the Irustees of the Tuolumne Water Company: 

" Gentlemen: — The petition of the undersigned respect- 
fully showeth : That they are miners within this county, 



HISTOBY or TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 165 

and that they are now, and have been receiving water from 
your canal, and have paid large sums of money into 
your treasury for its use. The aggregate sum they have 
paid, they are confident, has been sufficient to liquidate the 
whole capital stock of your Company, and besides give a 
fair remuneration for the outlay of the money. During 
the infancy of your Company, and when extraordinary de- 
mands were made for repairs, and to put your enterprise 
in proper condition, they made no objections to the price 
of water, but cheerfully looked forward to a time when 
your finances would permit a reduction of tolls. Your 
petitioners believe that the time has arrived, and that the 
price of water should be reduced to four dollars per day 
tor a full sluice stream. By an accurate calculation made, 
it has been ascertained that a majority of those using your 
water, from the excessiveness of the tolls, do not realize 
for their labor an average of two dollars per day, and the 
difference between this sum and the price of labor per day 
is paid to your Company, in opposition to the wisest rules 
of trade. The general distress throughout the community 
— the lack of paj'ing earth as compared with former times, 
independent of the arguments given above — are forcible 
and cogent reasons for an alteration of your tariff of prices. 
Your petitioners, therefore, pray that the Trustees will 
take some immediate action for the reduction of the price 
of water to four dollars per day for a full sluice stream." 
To this petition, seemingly very reasonable under the 
circumstances, the following answer was returned: 

" To the Miners' Committee : 

" Gentlemen: — I am instructed by the Trustees of the 
Tuolumne County Water Company to make the following 
reply to your petition asking for a reduction of the price 
of water for mining purposes : 



166 HISTORY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 

" It has been, and still is, the intention of the Company, 
to reduce the rates of water from time to time, when it can 
be done without too great a sacrifice of their own interest. 

" Your petition states: ' That no objection was made to 
the price of water when extraordinary demands were made 
for repairs, etc' 

" In answer to which I am directed to say that there have 
never been more extraordinary demands for repairs and 
heavy outlays than at the present time, since the introduc- 
tion of water by the Company; and the Trustees are confi- 
dent that at the rates of water asked by your petition, the 
amount would very little exceed the cost of repairs and the 
expense of distributing the water and collecting the rents. 

" That it is their intention to bring in a much larger 
supply of water during the present season; and also, as 
soon as practicable, to bring the water of the Stanislaus 
Biver into their ditch, so as to afford a full and constant 
supjDly of water throughout the year, when they confidently 
hope they can reduce the water rates, without an unreason- 
able sacrifice of the interests of the Company. 

•' The assumption set forth in your petition: ' That the 
aggregate sum received for water by your Company has 
been sufficient to liquidate the whole capital stock of the 
Company, besides giving a fair remuneration for the outlay 
of the money,' so far from being correct, the amount 
received for water has paid only about two per cent, per 
month on the actual cost of the work. 

" All of which is most respectfully submitted. 

" R. A. Robinson, 
''Sec'y T. C. W. Co. 

" Columbia, March 10, 1855." 

Resolutions were then submitted to the Miners' meeting 
to the effect that as the T. C. W. Co. had refused to com- 
ply with their just demands, the claims of those miners 



HISTOBt OF TtJOLUMNE COUNTT. 167 

who wished to stop work in order to avoid the consump- 
tion of the Company's water should have their claims pro- 
tected against jumpers, up to the 1st of January, 1856, and 
all deep or wet clay claims should be so protected up to 
May 1st, 1856, even though water should be given free; 
and that a Recorder should be appointed to record the 
claims of those wishing to suspend work, for which service 
he should receive one dollar. Also, that those wishing to 
avail themselves of this action should post up notices on 
their claims to that effect. These resolutions were unani- 
mously adopted, and J. A. Palmer was apjjoin ted Recorder. 
It was voted that a grand mass meeting should take place 
on the Tuesday following, and the meeting adjourned. 

At noon, on Tuesday, miners from gulch and hill-side 
came flocking into town to attend the mass meeting to be 
held at one o'clock in front of the Methodist Church South. 
Long before the hour of meeting had arrived the booming 
of cannon and the merry music of church bells had called 
together nearly three thousand people. About thirteen 
hundred of those present then formed in procession, and 
marched through the streets of the young city, preceded by 
the Stars and Stripes and a band of music, and bearing 
mottoes and transparencies having appropriate devices 
dispersed throughout the line. 

The procession returning, the meeting was organized by 
the choice of I. A. Stevens, President; Messrs. J. A. Pal- 
mer and Joseph Creasy as Secretaries. Resolutions were 
adopted, in substance, that the miners of the district 
pledged themselves to strike for aj reduction of water to 
four dollars a day, and that they would never pay more, 
nor suffer more to be paid by others; that the officers of 
the new Company (the Columbia and Stanislaus River 
Water Company) be requested to recommence work forth- 
with upon their canal, to the south fork of the Stanislaus, 



168 HISTORY or TDOLUMNE COUNTY. 

80 as to give immediate employment to the miners who 
would be thrown out of employment by the strike; and 
that a committee of five be appointed to confer with them, 
to procure information in relation to the prosecution of the 
work. 

It was, in short, unanimously resolved to do no more 
work in mining until the then existing water rates were 
satisfactorily arranged. 

To the communication of the miners, addressed to the 
Columbia and Stanislaus Water Company, respecting the 
all important subject, the following reply was returned: 
" Office of the Columbia and Stanislaus Water Company — . 

" Gentlemen: Your note of this date has been received, 
and we hasten to reply as follows: 

" First — We have decided to build the canal from Colum- 
bia to the south foi'k of the Stanislaus River, distance 
twenty-five miles. 

" Second — We are ready to commence the work at once. 
We have a competent corps of engineers ready to enter the 
field immediately, and on Monday next will have work suf- 
ficient to employ five hundred men upon that day. 

" Third — If two hundred men or more will find provisions 
and tools for themselves, we will begin on Monday, 19th 
instant. 

*' Fourth — The whole work will be under contract, and 
parties can taka their choice of it, either by the rod, cubic 
foot, yard, mile or section, and be paid at the prevailing 
rate for labor, four dollars per day, in the stock of the 
Company. 

" Fifth — As the means and provisions can be obtained, 
and our arrangements made, we will be prepared to receive 
those who cannot furnish provisions for themselves, due 
notice of which will be given at an early day. 

" Sixth — A book is now open at our office, wherein the 



HISTOEY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY, 169 

names of those who are willing to provision themselves 
may be registered, where we hope that those desirous of 
engaging in the enteriDrise will call, that we may speedily 
make uj) the number of 200 men. 

" Seventh — Unless 200 persons, or more, are willing to 
provision themselves, and are ready to go to work on 
Monday next, we will not be able to commence at that 
period. 

" Eighth— By an accurate calculation we have made, 
500 men will commence the work, and continue thirty-five 
days, we can reasonably expect the completion of the canal 
down to the head of Wood's Creek, back of Yankee Hill, 
in that time. 

" Ninth — A book is now open at our office for the regis- 
try of those who are willing to go to work, but are not able 
to provision themselves. 

" We should be most happy, gentlemen, to co-operate 
with the miners of Columbia in obtaining a full supply of 
water, at a cost not exceeding $4 jDer day, and in all prob- 
ability at a less price. 

" Hoping that the above projpositions will meet with your 
approbation, we remain 

" Resjiectfullj^ yours, 

" James W. Coffroth, President, 

" For Trustees C. & S. W. Co. 

'' Office at Mr. Levy's fire-j3roof building, Main street, 
opposite American Hotel." 

Upon receipt of the above communication, the miners 
immediately signified their acceptance of the conditions 
proposed, and crowding to the office, registered themselves 
in large numbers as laborers on the canal. 

Such sudden action was a complete surprise to the old 
company, who had so long held the destinies of the whole 
section in their hands, and who had supposed their lease 



170 HISTOBY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 

of power to be of indefinite duration. Suddenly deprived 
of their revenues — for every consumer of their water had 
ceased work, and consequently ceased using the valuable 
fluid — they were brought quickly to their senses. It would 
not do to attempt to hold out against the throng — some- 
thing must b© done to pacify them. Accordingly, as a sort 
of feeler, or compromise measure, this letter was addressed 
to the officers of the associated miners: 

** Notice to the Miners. — Gentlemen, the Board of 
Trustees of the Tuolumne County Water Company, under 
present exigencies, beg leave to submit to your favorable 
consideration the following proposition: That if the 
miners will proceed to make the necessary enlargement to 
their ditch for the purpose of procuring a larger supply of 
water, that they will issue scrip at the rate of $4 per day 
for labor performed, which scrip shall be receivable for 
water at the rate of $4 per day, after the completion of 
such work; and from and after that time the regular 
charges for water shall be $4 per day. The distance of the 
enlargement and addition is about 12i miles. Should this 
proposition meet your approbation, they are ready to com- 
mence the work immediately. 

" T. B. Drykr, President pro iem. 
" R. A. Robinson, Secretary." 

On the following Tuesday this proposition was submitted 
to a miners' meeting, and also accepted. This was the end 
pf the great strike which has borne an important place in 
the traditions of Tuolumne county. That the miners' 
action was provocative of good, there can be no doubt, as 
it was the immediate cause of lowering the price of water, 
and also of building up a great enterprise — the Columbia 
and Stanislaus "Water Company — that very likely, but for 
the stimulus then and subsequently furnished, would never 
have resulted in anything of moment, but as it turned out, 



HISTORY OF TUOLUMNE COUTITY. 171 

became one of the greatest and most important ditch en- 
terprises in the California mines. 

Several hundred miners commenced immediately the ex- 
cavation of the new ditch, and more constantly joined 
them, swelling the laboring army to a size that promised 
the speedy completion of the work. Meanwhile those who 
had remained in Columbia made prej)arations for cele- 
brating the victory in progress in a manner at once unique 
and satisfactory. 

On Monday, March 19th, large delegations of miners 
from Springfield, Jamestown, Shaw's Flat, Wood's Cross- 
ing, and other mining camps, paid the Columbia boys a 
visit, and they were well treated indeed. Their visit must 
have been exceedingly agreeable. On Washington street 
tables were set nearly the whole length of the street, which 
were loaded with eatables for the visitors' refreshment. A 
subscription had been carried around the day previous, to 
which nearly every business man of the town subscribed; 
the merchants, the butchers, the bakers, and all, furnish- 
ing such things as were in their line, which could be made 
useful in the matter. All saloons, restaurants and hotels 
were thrown open to the guests of the day, and to the in- 
habitants of Columbia, too, that all might enter and par- 
take " without money and without price." Toward even- 
ing a procession numbering three thousand marched to 
Yankee Hill to witness the ceremony of breaking ground 
upon the new ditch. Returning, the out-of-town boys were 
escorted to their several homes by the Columbians. Thus 
ended the celebration. The new ditch thus favorably in- 
augurated, kept up its labors until the promises set forth 
in their letter were partly realized. They had accom- 
plished the task of building the ditch to the South Fork, 
and at a less expense than was anticipated; but the supply 
of water was found insufficient. It was then resolved to 



172 HISTORY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 

continue onward to the North Fork, in order to secure an 
unlimited and unfailing supply. It was not, however, un- 
til the year 1858 that the work was finally completed. 
The completion was made a day of celebration, as befitted 
the occasion. From the Tuolumne Courier of December 
4th, 1858, these particulars relating to the ditch and to the 
day, have been selected. The account was written by J. 
C. Durbrow, Esq., editor of the Courier, but now of the 
Tuolumne Independent: 

y/ GKAND WATER CELEBRATION! 

THE COLUMBIA AND STANISLAUS WATER COMPANY'S DITCH 
COMPLETED ! 

THE CELEBRATION OF ITS ADVENT ! 

MONDAY, NOVEMBER 29tH, 185 8. 

A GREAT REJOICING ! 



THE DAY. 

/The eventful day had at length arrived — the 29th day of 
November, in the year of our Lord 1858, the day when the 
water of the North Fork of Stanislaus river made its first 
a4vent into Columbia. The day when the laborers, one 
and all, on the Columbia and Stanislaus Water Company's 
canals, threw down their tools and threw up their hats, 
shouting from one end of the vast aqueduct to the other, 
'f The work is done! " 

^Bright Phoebus and all the other gods and goddesses 
who claim affinity to Old Sol, ushered in the morn most 
gloriously. ' It was a bright and glorious day for all crea- 
tion generally, and a bright and glorious day for the sons 
and daughters of Columbia in particular. Scarce had Au- 
rora lit up the chambers of the East before hundreds of 



J 



HISTORY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 173 

our population were awake, alive and a- doing. Thousands 
of the denizens of the neighboring towns soon came pour- 
ing in, dressed in their best ' go-to-meetings.' , Guns were 
firing and banners were flying; sweet and powerful tones 
of music, in harmonious minglings, filled the ears. Sonora 
and all the neighboring villages were soon depopulated, 
and everybody and every^body's relations and acquaintances, 
with their wives, their daughters and their daughters' 
daughters, were here. ^Fourth of July and all such com- 
mon demonstrations was no circumstance to the displays, 
the crowds, the jams and jollifications of the day. Our 
streets were full, our houses were full, our stores were full, 
and our saloons were fiill. Everybody Avas at home just 
where he happened to find himself when, for a moment, he 
awoke to a consciousness of his whereabouts amid the be- 
wildering maze all around him. Everybody was rejoicing 
and being glad to see everybod}'. Every one was treating 
and being treated. Everybody was drinking, everybody 
was eating, everybody was smoking, and ' the rest of man- 
kind ' was looking on. 

THE PROCESSION. 

A grand procession was formed at ten o'clock in the 
morning, by the arrangement and under the orders of Col. 
J. D. Potterson, Grand Marshal of the Day, and proceeded 
in the following order: 

FIRST DIVISION. 

Captain James McLean, Aid to the Grand Marshal. 
Faxon's Sonora Band. 
Saw Mill Flat Infantry, Captain Holland. 
Orator and President of the Day, in a carriage. 
Trustees and Officers of the Columbia and Stanislaus 
River Water Company, in a carriage. 



174 HISTORY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 

The Miners of Gold Springs, with appropriate banners 
and flags. (With this fine appearing body of miners 
walked Mr. Thomas Campbell, with his celebrated bag- 
pipes, discoursing the music of the " land o' cakes.)" 

SECOND DIVISION. 

R. Mullan, Aid to the Grand Marshal. 
Columbia Hook and Ladder Company, No. 1. 
Sonora Fire Department. 

Columbia Hose Company, No. 1, with their beautiful 
banner, presented by the ladies of Columbia. 

THIKD DIVISION. 

I. J. Potter, Aid to the Grand Marshal. 
Trustees of the City of Columbia. 
Carriages containing distinguished visitors. 
Mounted men. 

FOURTH DIVISION. 

R. Dornan, Aid to the Grand Marshal. 
■ Columbia Brass Band. 

Springfield Artillery Company, with their big gun. 

The men who built the flumes and ditches, with banners 
and badges. 

Miners' Union, one thousand strong, headed by Col. I. 
A. Stevens, their President. 

Then followed a long column of miners, four abreast. 

The procession marched up the Gold Springs road to 
the company's high flume, where the water of the north fork 
of Stanislaus River was falling in three beautiful cascades, 
within the corporate limits of the City of Columbia, com- 
ing from the extreme end of the works, sixty miles distant 
in the mountains ! 

The line of march was again taken up, and passed 
through the principal streets to the square in front of the 



HISTORY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 175 

First Presbyterian Church, where were assembled a large 
number of ladies and gentlemen. 

" ORDER OF EXERCISES. 

'' Prayer by Rev. Mr. Baker. 
^ Music by Columbia Brass Band. " 

I The account then proceeds with a synopsis of the ad- 
dress of Hon. J. W. Coffroth, the Orator of the Day. The 
gentleman commenced his speech thus: 

" In the name of the Great Jehovah, who made us, where 
did you all come from, and what did you all come for? 
Why is this assembly of bright-eyed beauty here? — and 
why this discoursing of sweet music ? It is to recognize, 
and to do honor to feats of toil and perseverance carried 
out to their end, in the execution of a work that does honor, 
not only to our own locality, but to our county and the 
State. 'The completion of ditches and flumes, to supply 
the miners of this vicinity with water for mining uses. /We 
are assembled here to-day to proclaim their completion ! 
And have we not just and good cause to be thus jubilant ? — 
for who can calculate the benefits to accrue to us by being 
thus supplied with an abundant and constant supply of 
that element, which is the primary cause of our pros- 
perity. > I can well remember when this fair city of Colum- 
bia consisted of but a few log cabins. -What do we see 
before us to-day? « Dwellings and stores, of brick and 
stone, that would be no discredit to cities of much older 
date ! /And permit me to ask to what are we indebted for 
this proud position ? 'To the enterprise and indomitable 
will of our citizens, who have expended their capital and 
exerted their skill to supply the miners with cheap water. 

/^ It should not be out of place for the speaker to give a 
brief outline of the organization and the operators. Some 
four yejj:s a^o, the miners of this place finding the supply 



176 HISTORY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 

of water altogetlier inadequate to the demand, and the cost 
of that they did get more than thej' could pajj^, called a 
general meeting to devise a remedy. fThey resolved to trj; 
the effect of a petition to the officers of the Tiiolumne 
County Water Company, stating their grieva,nces, and ask- 
ing for a reduction in prices. For some cause best knoM^n 
to themselves, the Trustees of that Corapany refused to ac- 
cede to their wishes, and the e_vil being of such an oppres- 
sive character, the opposition to it soon became general. 
The consequence was the memorable ' Water Strike ' — an 
event long to be remembered in Columbia — and we^are here 
to celebrate the consequences of that stri^. 

" Well, some few of us had put our heads together to 
devise some plan to attain our object — cheap, abundant 
and constant water. We said to ourselves that if we could 
bring the water of the main river here, we should have all 
we could desire. At first we were almost afraid to let our 
project be known — merely whispering it to a few — fearing 
lest it should be considered the crude idea of some school- 
boy. To many, indeed, it would have seemed but an idle 
vaunt — the tale of an idiot — 'full of sound and fury, sig- 
nifying nothing.' The propagators were jeered and 
taunted, and even he (the speaker) was told that his efforts 
were intended but for the foundation of political success, 
and the basis of political ambition — the wild dreamings of 
a wayward discontent. Notwithstanding these depressions, 
we toiled on — ^we consulted those whom we considered 
qualified to give advice about such an important subject; 
and found that it could be done — and we resolved to doit! 
In the year 1854 we elected our first officers, the speaker 
being the first president, and General T. N. Cazneau the 
first Secretary. We were but a handful, as it were, at first, 
but soon, when people saw that we were in earnest, our 
forces augmented not only by miners, but merchants and 



HISTORY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 177 

store-keepers, and, in fact, every class of citizens aided us, 
either with labor or materials, until we were extemporized 
into a huge community of toilers. It will be four years on 
the 19th of next March since we struck the first blow and 
removed the first sod, since which time we have completed 
ditches and flumes to tlie extent of sixty miles, before they 
reach any locality in which mining is carried on, and 
twenty miles through the various mining districts, the cost 
of which has been over a million of dollars! 

"Talk about the Pacific Railroad costing so much that 
it will be impossible to construct it! Why, here are a few 
mountain towns expending over a million on a work of 
merely local importance! Here is an example to the world 
of what a small portion of the American people can do 
when they work in earnest! Nor could he forget to men- 
tion the tunnel of three thousand one hundred feet in 
length, through a huge mountain. * * ^k * 

"Although we are to-day in such high spirits, and full 
of satisfaction at the completion of our task, it has not 
been so pleasant and agreeable to us at all times; for we 
can well remember when cold and hunger were our almost 
constant companions; when even food of the coarsest de- 
scription was impossible to get; when our supply of pro- 
visions was often exhausted before another arrived; 
when we were fearful of being unable to obtain provisions 
at all for those engaged in the work. ***=(. 

' ' It might be interesting to know what our bill of fare 
generally contained. First, we had beans — just plain 
beans; next came bean soup; then, boiled beans; then, by 
way of change, baked beans; for entremets, we had beans, 
also. Then we had beans ' a la mode.' For dessert we 
had cold beans ! In fact, beans were the alpha and omega 
of our cuisine." * * * * * * * 

In conclusion, the speaker urged upon the miners the 



178 HISTORY OF TDOLUMNE COUNTY. 

necessity of jealously guarding their rights. They all had 
an important part to perform in the drama of life, and 
should follow the poet's injunction: 

"In the world's wide field of battle, 

In the bivouac of life, 
Be not like dumb driven cattle; 

But all be heroes in the strife.' " 

After the conclusion of Mr. Coffroth's remarks a bene- 
diction was pronounced by the Rev. Mr. Hamilton, and 
the procession formed again and proceeded to State street, 
at the upper end of which a public dinner, free to all 
comers, was spread. 

The evening closed with, a display of fireworks on a scale 
unprecedented in the mines, while the whole town was 
brilliantly illuminated with candles and appropriate trans- 
parencies, huge bonfires burning upon the surrounding hills. 
A ball was in progress at the theater, and the streets were 
thronged throughout the livelong night with thousands of 
citizens and visitors, in the best possible humor, and all 
was peaceful and harmonious rejoicing. 



The Kittering- Worth Homicide. 

One of the more noticeable events of 1855, was the 
murder of Kittering at Algerine Camp. Previous to the 
account of this case it will be essential to introduce the 
story of another affair, notorious at the time, and which is 
intimately connected with the above murder. This was 
the bold murder of Judge Brunton at Yorktown, which 
occurred in the night of June 30, when a band of bur- 
glars, four in number, entered the sleeping apartment of 
that gentleman and abstracted twelve thousand dollars 
from a safe in the room, where most of the family were 



HISTOEY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 179 

asleep, and accomplishing their object without awaking any 
one but the Judge. The account given by the latter was to 
the effect that upon his waking he saw a man standing 
over him with an axe in his hands, remarking to him to lie 
still, as money was all they wanted. Accordingly the 
Judge lay quiet until the burglars had left the room, when 
he arose, and taking a pistol, followed them into another 
room, where he had an encounter with the rearmost one, 
who knocked him senseless, besides inflicting a severe 
knife wound upon his neck. He was discovered the next 
morning by the family, who raised an alarm. 

Connected with this affair, and with the subsequent 
assassination of the old gentleman, was a painful mystery 
that time has not yet cleared up. Many hypotheses have 
been advanced to account for these outrages, but no clue 
has ever been found that would lead to the discovery of the 
villains who, for years, as well known, made Judge Brun- 
ton's life a period of continual dread. And it is highly 
improbable that the secret of these daring and extraordi- 
nary outrages ever will be known. Several years elapsed 
between the first and last acts of this chain of events, the 
first, described above, being in June, 1855, while the final 
act, the death of the victim, took place in December, 1860. 
In the interim, a succession of lesser outrages against the 
gentleman's person and property took place, evidently in- 
stigated by the same herd of thieves and cut-throats, or 
political enemies, who inspired and executed the others. 

Growing out of this robbery, and immediately following 
it, came the murder spoken of at the head of this section. 

The trial of this case, being conducted by eminent law- 
yers on either side, has caused the affair to assume an im- 
portance and a notoriety perhaps greater than would right- 
fully attach to it if the standing of the principal actors 
alone was considered. William H. Worth was brought up* 



180 HISTORY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 

for his trial on the 6th of March, 1856, Judge Creaner pre- 
siding, with District Attorney Caleb Dorsey and H. P. Bar- 
ber appearing for the People, while Calhoun Benham, 
Colonel Delia Torre, Colonel B. F. Moore and Charles M. 
Scott appeared for the defense. Certainly an imposing 
array of the best legal talent that the State could furnish. 
Nearly every one of these six men have left their mark as 
eminent lawyers, and their conduct on this occasion did 
their talents no disgrace. The peculiarities of each were 
impressed upon the minds of the spectators, and the foren- 
sic triumph gained by the defense against the high legal 
acumen displayed by the opposition was and is regarded as 
of the very first importance in the Court annals of this 
county. 

The particulars of the shooting came out as follows 
Kittering, a blacksmith and gunsmith, who pursued his 
trades at Algerine Camp, indiscreetly charged W. H. 
Worth, Justice of the Peace at the same place, with being 
a party to the Brunton robbery, then the exciting topic of 
conversation throughout the county. These hasty words, 
perhaps with no foundation in fact, and probably uttered 
through the common impulse that some men have to appear 
wise in such matters, came to Worth's ears, and the latter, 
excusably enough, sought an explanation. Both parties 
retired to Kittering's house to discuss the matter, but 
what occurred between them could not be ascertained; as 
within a few minutes shots were heard within, and hasty 
words uttered, indicating that the two were in mortal com- 
bat. Cries of murder were heard from Kittering, and 
Worth immediately came out, leaving his antagonist dead 
upon the floor. 

After the conclusion of the testimony, the District At- 
torney summed up the case for the prosecution. He 
reviewed the testimony, and maintained that through the 



HISTORY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 181 

evidence of several neighbors of the deceased, who heard 
the conflict and were witnesses to the state of feelings be- 
tween the accused and Captain Kittering, the facts had 
been clearly proven. He admitted that deceased had en- 
tertained suspicious of the prisoner being concerned in the 
Brunton robbery, and claimed that the prisoner had not 
shown that he should have been free from such suspicions. 
He remarked that the defendant, if entirel}' innocent of 
such a charge, or free from such a sus^Dicion, had no right 
to seek the life of the deceased; it was his duty to bear the 
accusation, and seek legal modes of redress. The Attor- 
ney brought to the especial notice of the jury, the points 
of the testimony, as he viewed them, and recapitulated all 
the facts established, which went to show that the prisoner 
had premeditated the murder of the deceased, and went to 
his house to consummate it. He counseled the jury to 
discharge their duty fearlessl}', and to maintain the sup- 
remacy of the laws. The gentleman's arguments were very 
able and earnest, he discharging his duties creditably, as 
became one who was regarded as the peer of the best crim- 
inal lawyers of the State. 

Following Mr. Dorse}' came the renowned attorneys, 
Benh am and Moore; both of the pronounced "fire-eater" 
type, and both upon their highest mettle to redeem a cause 
that seemed so clearl}"^ lost. 

Mr. Benham's address occupied four and a half hours, 
and commanded the closest attention of the Court and 
spectators. It was said to have been characterized by the 
loftiest eloquence, and the most soul-stirring appeals for 
the safety of his client. This gentleman's speech, though 
able, did not possess the interest that attached to that of 
Col. Moore, which followed it. The latter gentleman had, 
since the earliest times, been a pronounced figure in the 
legal circles of the State. In his own home, in Tuolumne, 



182 HISTOBY OF TDOLUMNE COUNTY. 

there were few competing characters. Among all his con- 
temporaries no more remarkable man stands forth. Emi- 
nent in the Courts as a practitioner, he was no less promi- 
nent in political and social affairs. No history, no notice 
even, of the earlier times of this region, could be consid- 
ered complete unless including his name. Now, as counsel 
in the defense in this famous trial, and occuj^ying as im- 
portant and prominent a position as it ever was the fortune 
of any Californian of that day to fill, he rose to his utmost 
elevation. The Colonel was in many ways worthy of re- 
mark, both on account of his mental qualifications, and his 
personal eccentricities. Tall, several inches over six feet, 
with erect, straight figure, though very spare and exces- 
sively narrow-chested, clear-cut, strongly marked features, 
gray hair, once black, and a very proud and haughty car- 
riage, said to correspond with his extreme self-esteem, 
made up the more noticeable points of the man's personal 
appearance, which, from all accounts, was most imposing. 
A fact that, in some measure, helps to account for his re- 
markable success as a criminal lawyer, doubtless aided by 
his high reputation for fearlessness and eccentricity. As 
might be supposed, these qualities had made him an object 
of interest in the highest degree to the rougher inhabi- 
tants of that epoch. 

Colonel Moore owed nothing of his phenomenal success 
to his learning, for even upon legal points that was of the 
slimmest possible character; and in general matters his 
illiteracy was profound. Neither did he make any attempt 
to conceal his want of knowledge. He rather gloried in it. 
And the want of erudition which would now, were he 
alive, subject him to ridicule before a Court, then often- 
times proved a powerful aid before a jury, who felt them- 
selves, as it were, " in the same boat," and allowed their 
feelings to be won by sloppy eloquence, rather than by the 
more polished and learned efforts of rival attorneys. 



HISTOKY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 183 

It was a maxim with the Colonel never to be on the side 
of the prosecution. Defense was with him a principle; and 
by the judicious selection of a jury — Southerners, all — he 
usually managed to win his cases. A goodly portion of 
his stock in trade was extracts from the speeches of such 
men as Clay, Calhoun and Randolph. These extracts, 
whether bearing or not on the merits of the case, he would 
repeat to the wondering and admiring jurymen until, like 
the rustic villagers in Goldsmith's poem, " Still the wonder 
grew that one small head could carry all he knew. " 

Eailing against books and book-learning, sneering when 
other forms of attack were impossible, domineering over 
Judge (excepting always Judge Creaner), deriding North- 
ern men and the principles commonly supposed to have 
been theirs, upholding the superiority of the chivalrous 
people of the South, bursting into furious eloquence at 
any and all times, and taking the lead when more modest 
and perhaps abler men would have hesitated, the Colo- 
nel lived throughout the liveij' ' ' flush times " without a 
peer or a dangerous rival in his petuliar province. 

There is in circulation a story of Moore's conflict with 
Judge Tuttle, of the Court of Sessions, in which the 
former, taking violent offense at the Judge's proceedings, 
drew a pistol upon him. The origin of this, and its only 
foundation, was a difficulty between Moore and J. M. 
Huntington, a rival lawyer, in which Moore, having drawn 
his revolver upon his adversary, was knocked senseless by 
George Work, in order, as the latter said, to save his life 
from Huntington, who, otherwise, would certainly have 
killed him. This affray took place in the building now 
occupied by S. Thomas as a saloon. This version is given 
by Dr. Walker, an eyewitness, who further relates that 
Work picked ujd his friend Moore, and with tears stream- 
ing from his eyes carried him in his arms to his own room 
and waited upon him until his recovery. 



184: HISTORY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 

It is a current tradition in Tuolumne that Judge Creaner 
and Colonel Moore were warm personal friends, but that 
once their friendshij) was in imminent danger of rupture. 
It is told in this connection that the Judge had a habit, 
when his temper was ruffled, of showing the degree of his 
anger by raising the extremity of his nose, and watchful 
attorneys had learned by experience to forbear at this dan- 
irerous sisrn of wrath. On a certain occasion Moore was 
engaged in defending a client who was accused of robbery. 
In the course of his remarks he attempted to introduce 
certain evidence, which the Judge ruled out as inadmissi- 
ble. Dissatisfied with this, Moore addressed the jury thus: 

"Gentlemen of the jury: We of the defense have intro- 
duced evidence to prove that my client was absent from 
town on the night of the robbery, and therefore innocent, 
but His Honor has ruled it out; and, gentlemen, an old 
cow would have had more sense than to make such a ruling!" 

Thus far the Colonel had proceeded with his address, 
when the Judge's nose went up.' "Mr. Moore!" he said; 
but, unheeding the interruption, Ben proceeded. "Mr. 
Moore!" called the Judge, a little louder. Still Mr. Moore 
refused to listen. The Judge's self-command, although 
powerfully exerted, Avas almost gone. "Mr. Moore!" he 
shouted, bringing his fist down on the desk before him, 
"did I understand you to say that an old cow would have 
more sense than this Court?" Ben paused and took in 
the situation. "No, sir," he replied, "I did not say it." 
"Ah, then I was mistaken. Proceed, Mr. Moore." And 
the case went on. After the adjournment of Court, Mr. 
Dorsey took the chivalrous Moore aside, and jokingly ac- 
cused him of telliujg- a falsehood. "Lie," said Ben, "of 
course I lied. Why, I had to lie, or kill old Creaner; and 
I'd lie a thousand times before I'd do that! You'd play 
, making apologies to that old nose, wouldn't you ?" 







^^-^ 



^^^^2^5^^ <-^. -^^-^ 



HISTORY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 185 

Although, as previously remarked, he was wholly without 
education in the common acceptation of the term, and was 
obliged to depend on others to perform a great part of his 
duties, such as drawing up legal documents and the like, 
yet in addressing an assemblage of ordinary men, Moore's 
natural talents shone conspicuous. With a great insight 
into human nature and the deeper springs of hviman action, 
his judgment in the selection and subsequent management 
of a jury was unerring. On one occasion he was reproved 
by another well known lawyer for his address to a jury, 
which had just retired to deliberate. In fine, he was told 
that his remarks were ridiculous. "You think," he said, 
"that I was addressing twelve learned judges, but I knew 

I was talking to a dozen . I am going to win this 

case." And he did win it. 

"When submitting the case of Worth to the jury, he made 
perhaps the most effective speech that he ever delivered. 
According to the reports (overdrawn, of course) of that 
trial, he brought home to the hearts of the jury a mass of 
proof in a manner to command from them the acquittal of 
bis client. His style, it was said, was peculiar, the voice 
and action coming home upon the listener, while the earnest 
and impassioned degree with which he seemed to throw his 
whole soul and heart into his remarks, riveted the entire 
mind and feeling of the listener. He depicted the bitter 
hate of the deceased towards the prisoner — the long cher- 
ished, malignant hate which he had nursed towards him — 
and the exulting cruelty with which he sjjread the damaging 
report of the Brunton robbery; the hot haste with which 
he flew to the scene of the robbery, and the eager earnest- 
ness with which he endeavored to impress on Brunton that 
it was the object of his deep hatred who had perpetrated 
the crime; his deep disappointment that Brunton would 
not believe it; his wicked determination to cling to the be- 



186 HISTORY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 

lief, and his industry in spreading it about; his active 
preparation tor the spilling of blood; the borrowing of arms 
on the highway, even; his formidable preparation in the 
dark back room; his oft expressed wish and hope that he 
might have his victim in his toils, get him in that room and 
"give him no show:" "the eloquent counsellor's description 
of a man who would give another 'no show,' was perfectly 
electrifying; and his winding up with the expression, 'My 
God, lives there a man claiming the attributes of manhood 
■who would not give his fellow-man ' a show,' " made the 
blood jump and tingle in one's veins. A witness (Johns) 
who fled at the report of the firearms was completely rid- 
dled, and the precipitate flight of that individual, as he fled 
from under his hat and jumped out of his boots with the 
speed of a quarter-horse, or the vvhole-souled and earnest 
locomotion of a dog with a tin kettle tied to his tail, was 
strongly contrasted with his ability to hear and understand 
while still under such furious headway. "The whole testi- 
mony, although so thoroughly handled by Mr. Benham, 
still received new light through the masterly review given 
it by Colonel Moore; and the fixed looks of the jury and 
breathless attention of the auditory, told how deep an im- 
pression he was making." 

Equally characteristic was Judge Creaner's charge to the 
jury: "The indictment charges the defendant with the 
crime of murder, which is the unlawful killing of a human 
being with malice aforethought, either express or implied. 
Express malice is that deliberate intention unlawfully to 
take the life of another, which is manifested by external 
circumstances capable of proof — such as lying in wait, 
antecedent menaces, threats, etc. Implied malice is where 
no considerable provocation appears, or when all the cir- 
cumstances of the killing show an abandoned and malig- 
nant heart. You, gents, are the sole judges of the facts; 



HISTORY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 187 

the oath that you have taken as jurors is, that you will try 
this case, and render a true verdict, according to the evi- 
dence. 

"It is your duty, therefore, to take into consideration 
all the facts and circumstances that have been related to 
you in evidence, and if you shall believe that the de- 
fendant is guilty, you will, without any hesitancy, find a 
verdict to that effect. But if you believe from the evidence 
that the defendant is not guilty as charged, you should 
acquit him of the charge of murder, and inquire whether 
he is guilty of the lesser crime of manslaughter, which is 
defined by our statutes to be the unlawful killing of a 
human being without malice expressed or implied, and 
without any mixture of deliberation. 

"If you shall believe from the evidence that the homi- 
cide was committed in a sudden heat of passion, caused by 
provocation, apparently such as to make the passion irre, 
sistible, then you should find him guilty of manslaughter, 
unless you shall think that the homicide was justifiable. 
Justifiable homicide is the killing of a human being in 
necessary self-defense, or in defending habitation, prop- 
erty or person against one who manifestly intends or en- 
deavors by violence or surprise to commit a felony. If you 
should think the homicide justifiable, you should find a 
verdict of not guilty." 

The jury found a verdict of not guilty, and W. H. Worth 
was set free, soon to shake the dust of Tuolumne from his 
feet. His subsequent history is unknown, but there is 
good evidence for believing that he became an Episcopal 
clergyman at a later period, and that he made his habitation 
in Virginia during the great Civil War. 



188 HISTORY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 



Execution of Escobar and Sebada. 

On August 3, 1855, two Cliiienos, Escobar and Sebada, 
were executed by due process of law for the murder of 
John Sheldon, a constable of Sonora. This murder, which 
caused one of the sensations of the times, was committed 
in May previous. To enter fully into the details of this 
noted case, with its causes, would require that the narra- 
tive should extend back to the year 1850, when Sheldon, 
the victim of the homicide, in the pursuance of his sworn 
duty, killed a man, and finallj^, after more than three years 
of waiting and watching, the friends of that man wreaked 
their bloody revenge — a fact that well illustrates one of 
the less admirable phases of the Spanish and South Ameri- 
can character. 

The incidents of the shooting affray that gave rise to 
this homicide and subsequent hanging, composed what has 
been known as the " Riot in the Tigre," between the Span- 
ish s]peaking inhabitants of that quarter and the Americans. 
But if the newspaper accounts of the affray may be trusted 
(and why should they not be, written, as they are, at the 
precise time of the occurrence ?) then the affair has been 
most grossly exaggerated, and does not, and never did, de- 
serve a place in the important recollections of Tuolumne. 
The facts are simply these: Marshal J. F. McFarland, in 
endeavoring to convey a drunken Spaniard from the Tigre 
to the jail, was beset by several of the prisoner's friends, 
who tried to rescue him. Calling for assistance, several 
Americans responded, and in the brief combat that ensued, 
a Chilean, name not given, was shot with three bullets, any 
one of which was sufficient to have let out his life. The 
man died, but the officer was not forgotten by his friends, 
and for years thereafter the footsteps of John Sheldon 
(who was believed to have fired the shots) were dogged by 



HISTORY OF TUOLUMNE COUKTY. 189 

the unforgiving former intimates of the dead Chilean, until 
at last a fitting opportunity came, and accounts were 
squared by another violent death. Sheldon, who was 
night watchman, was perfectly aware that his enemies had 
determined to kill him; but, undaunted, he continued his 
accustomed duties, and in time became more and more 
careless, until his only precautions consisted in providing 
himself with suitable weajDons, and in the selection of the 
middle of the street in which to perform his regular nightly 
beat. On one excessively dark night in May, 1855, three 
men sprang upon him from behind some obstructions, and 
seizing him, muffled as he was in his cloak, stabbed him 
fatally, and after making sure of their work, ran off in the 
darkness, leaving no trace to aid in their discovery, save a 
hat which one of them dropped. The wounded man stag- 
gered to the United States Hotel, and within a few min- 
utes expired. Fleeing to Tuttletown, two of the murder- 
ers were there taken on the very next day, the lost hat fur- 
nishing the sole clew by which they were identified. Proofs 
of their guilt being forthcoming at their trial, a verdict of 
guilty of murder in the first degree was rendered, and be- 
ing sentenced, August 3 was set as the day of execution, 
and they were on that day hanged in presence of a crowd 
of three thousand spectators. 

Between the hours of eleven and twelve o'clock the Co- 
lumbia Fusileers and the Sonora G-reys, two splendid look- 
ing, well equipped and strictly disciplined companies of 
volunteer troops, marched to the County Jail to act as 
escort for the prisoners, who were then placed in a carriage, 
their Catholic priest between, and driven to the gallows, 
accompanied by a dense mass of human beings, consisting 
of men, women and children. The place of execution was 
well selected for purposes of exhibition, for the gallows 
was erected on a small flat surrounded on every side by 



190 HISTORY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 

gently rising hills, and none who felt desirous of witness" 
ing a human being writhing in his last death agonies could 
retire disappointed, for the view was full and complete. 

On arriving at the place of execution, the military 
opened a way through the crowd, the prisoners were taken 
from the carriage, and unaided, with light and elastic step, 
ascended the platform; no two men knowing that their last 
hours had come, could have appeared more indifferent and 
regardless of their fate than did these two prisoners. A 
spectator not knowing that they were then about to sutler 
the penalty of death for violating the laws of God and 
humanity, would have inferred from their appearance that 
they had ascended the stand as public declaimers — politi- 
cal speakers. After the death sentence had. been read to 
them, they both addressed the spectators in their native 
tongue, Spanish, and one, particularly, used violent and 
denunciatory language toward the Americans. Upon con- 
cluding their remarks they knelt, and, crucifix in hand, 
performed such religious ceremonies as their religion re- 
quired, and then the}^ paid the dread penalty. 

Thus from the simple circumstance of a Chileno getting 
drunk in the low resorts of the "Tigre,"grew a train of 
events that brought death to four persons and attending 
grief and misery to, doubtless, many more. 



Murder of Smith and Lynching of Barclay. 

The year 1855 was prolific of exciting events, as these 
pages show; but among them all, perhaps, nothing more 
exciting took place during the year (with the possible ex- 
cej)tion of the Heslep murder) than the murder in Colum- 
bia of J. H. Smith, of Knickerbocker Flat, and the sum- 
mary lynching of his slayer, John S. Barclay. 

At about half-past four o'clock on the afternoon of 



HISTOKY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 191 

Wednesday, October 10, 1855, John H. Smith was shot 
dead by John S. Barclay, in the house on the corner of 
Mainland Jackson streets, known as " Martha's Saloon." 
The house was of ill-fame, and Martha, the proprietress, 
of easy virtue. A few weeks before the murder occurred, 
she had, while on a business visit to Chinese Camp, thei'e 
met and become enamored of young Barclay, and the sen- 
timent being returned by him, marriage followed. Then 
returning to Columbia, the saloon was re-opened by the 
Xaair. Smith, a well-regarded sort of man, said to have 
been affianced to a young lady resident of Columbia, hav- 
ing been drinking on that fateful day, though usually a 
rather temperate man, became embroiled in a quarrel with 
Martha, in consequence of having broken a pitcher. High 
words following, Barclay came to the rescue of his wife and 
shot Smith dead in the melee. Almost instantly the man 
was arrested, taken to the town lock-up and there placed 
in confinement. 

Soon the people gathered, and in a very short time a 
large and excited mob surrounded the jail. J. W. Coffroth, 
Esq., addressed the assemblage, stating that ordinarily he 
was in favor of sustaining the laws, but that the occurrence 
was of a character to demand the speediest vengeance, and 
to warrant the people in taking the execution of the law 
into their own hands, and to mete out justice upon the 
spot; that the deceased held him as a very near and dear 
friend. He then passed an encomium upon the departed, 
and expressed a hope that the people would move, and that 
promptly. He had been elected, he said, to make laws, but 
upon this occasion he advised to lay them aside. 

Upon his conclusion a rush was made upon the jail, then 
held by Town Marshal Carder and a few police officers, 
who attempted to keep] the mob back,, but were speedily 
disarmed and hurried aside by their assailants. At this 



192 HISTORY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 

junctuie, Mr. Heckendorn, the editor (so-called) of the 
Columbia Clipper, was, by acclamation, appointed Judge; 
another person was made Marshal, and a jury of twelve 
men was nominated. These preliminaries being concluded, 
a second rush was made upon the jail, and a keg of pow- 
der was placed Jn position to blow the iron doors open, but 
fortunately it was not used. Crowbars, sledge-hammers 
and axciS were applied instead, and the doors gave way. 
Simultaneously' with their opening, the prisoner sprang out 
as if to make his escape by running; but he was instantly 
borne down by numbers and carried by the excited mass 
up-town, amidst cries, oaths and imprecations. 

Finally,^after one or two brief halts, the crowd arrived 
at the flume of the Tuolumne County Water Company, on 
the road to Gold Springs. A ring was formed and 
"Judge" Heckendorn took charge of the proceedings. 
Mr. Coffroth was appointed prosecuting attorney, and John 
Oxley (Assemblyman from Tuolumne) counsel for the pris- 
oner, and a jury was called, consisting of James McLean, 
Charles Williams, George Woodbury, Daniel Willcombe, 
A. H, Leavitt, John Douglas, John Bostwick, G. Lumsdell, 
T. Walls, Joseph Hussey and J. B. Plank. After much 
discussion, the question was put, " Shall the jury be 
sworn ? " and it was decided in the affirmative, and hearing 
the evidence began. Marshal, Briggs, Alexander and 
Keyes, witnesses for "The People," testified in substance 
that Smith, slightly drunk, was making preparations for 
starting homeward, he residing at Knickerbocker Flat; 
that while making a farewell round of visits to the saloons, 
he entered Martha's place along with the four witnesses 
mentioned, and accidentally or intentionally knocked a 
pitcher off the counter, or bar, when the mistress of the 
place appeared and demanded to know who did it. Little 
was evolved save that, getting in a dispute with her, Smith 



HISTORY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 193 

seized and threw her into a chair. At this juncture Bar- 
clay appeared from the next room, and seeing the situation 
of affairs, drew his revolver and instantly fired, with fatal 
effect. 

As the examination progressed it was not hard to see 
that the prisoner's fate was determined on, and that he was 
beyond human help. Witnesses who it was supposed 
would testify in his behalf, were not allowed within the 
ring, and even his advocate was interrupted and his voice 
drowned. Mr. Coffroth, on the contrary, was allowed full 
swing for his denunciatory speeches, and seemed to have 
everything his own way from the first; naturally, too, for at 
this time he was the political idol of the ruling party. His 
remarks to the jury were about in this style: " Gentlemen, 
I have but little to say. You all knew the deceased, and 
knew that he was honest, good and high-minded. You 
have all heard the testimony and know the witnesses; they 
have lived long among you. The prisoner, I have testified, 
had a good character; but I am not here to plead his char- 
acter. The only question to ask is. Who is the murdered 
man, who the murderer? If you are satisfied that the 
prisoner shot Smith, then it is your duty to declare it, and 
it is your duty to declare the penalty. * * * There is 
a higher Court to ask for mercy. This man should fulfill 
the Divine Law of 'An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, 
a life for a life.' ' Whosoever sheddeth man's blood, by man 
shall his blood be shed.' [Applause.] Gentlemen will 
please avoid any applause for the poor remarks I may oiTer. 
Consider the feelings of the prisoner. Who can estimate 
his anguish when he thinks upon the ignominious death 
that now awaits him ? " 

The prisoner, who had been sitting upon the ground with 
his hands over his face, now looked up and besought Mr. 
Coffroth to request of the jury a little time in which he 
might arrange his private affairs. 



194 HISTORY OF TDOLUMNE COUNTY. 

Mr. Oxley, appearing for the prisoner, said: "I shall be 
brief. Consider well, gentlemen, what you are about to 
do. Let to-morrow bear favorably upon the acts of this 
night. [Confusion, and much noise; cries of "Enough!'' 
"Enough!"] Will you not sustain the laws? Will it not 
be better that the just laws of our land should take their 
course? [Cries of "No!" "No!" "Up with him!" "Damn 
the laws!"] Let him be confined in jail. Consider your 
course, and the great responsibility that you assume. 
Give time for reflection. Let calmness have time to come 
in. Do not, after you have taken this man's life, find that 
it is too late to do justice. I do not say that the prisoner 
is entirely innocent, but that there are many extenuating 
circumstances. [Cries of "Short!" "Short!" "Enough!"] 
I expect to be short. I ask that the law may take its course. 
Let the prisoner have time, and let a proper investigation 
be had. Let time be granted. Let daylight be had for a 
fair trial. [Cries of "No!" "No!" "Hang him!" etc.] 

Judge.— "Hear Mr. Oxley." ["Enough!" "Enough!" 
"Drag him up!" "Damn him; he gave Smith no time!" 
"Hell shaP not save him!"| 

Oxley. — "I shall not stop. I shall do my duty as be- 
comes a man. If the jury tell me to stop, I will, but not 
otherwise. Act calmly, gentlemen." 

Here, loud cries stopped the speaker. Mr. Oxley j)leaded 
earnestly and manfully, and in a way to win the lasting re- 
spect of even those men, who were so impatient to imbrue 
their hands in a fellow creature's blood; but uselessly, for, 
forced down by the multitude, he retired amid oaths and 
imprecations. 

The case was now given to the jury, and they were asked 
to retire and consult. At this moment Sheriff Stuart 
arrived. Roaching the ground, he dismounted quietly, 
and walked around the outside of the ring to the vicinity 



HISTORY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 195 

of the prisoner, and, laying his hand upon him, demanded 
him in the name of the law and for the law. Some one 
immediately seized Stuart by the throat, while others 
rudely laid hold of him, throwing him back violently. 
With shouts of "The Sheriff!" "The Sheriff!" the crowd 
rushed forward, bearing Barclay and the ofBcer far apart. 
The latter demanded to be released, and to be supported 
in the discharge of his duty; but at first in vain. Getting 
free some minutes after, he rushed towards the prisoner, 
who was then under the flume with a rope around his neck. 
Calling for a knife, and securing one, he made ineffectual 
endeavors to cut the rope, but while so engaged he received 
a heavy blow on the head from the butt of a pistol, while 
others laid violent hands upon him, tearing his clothes, 
bruising his face, and disarming him. Barely was his life 
preserved, and that only through the presence of mind of 
a solitary friend, who, at the risk of his own safety, clutched 
a bowie-knife aimed at the Sheriff's body. 

The miserable prisoner, haltered by the rope suspended 
from the flume above, was drawn up by his executioners 
overhead, ascending with a savage yell from the multitude. 
No precautions had been taken to pinion the victim, and 
he, reaching upward, seized with desperate grip the rope, 
above his head, and held on with the force given by the 
fear of death. To break his hold, those above drew him 
up and let him down suddenlj^ several times, but still his 
powerful grasjj held good. One of the executioners, lean- 
ing over the flume, called out, "Let go, you fool, let 

go!" Finally his strength gave out; the hands fell to his 
sides. Drawing up his legs, he gave a few convulsive 
movements, and then hung straight. All was over, for 
body and soul had parted. 

■The spectacle was well said to be truly horrifying: a 
human form, hanging by the neck, in mid air; a vast throng 



196 HISTORY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 

of men, shoutinof, yelling and jumping; while the red and 
lurid glare of torches and bonfires sent a horrid flash upon 
the terrible scene. 

Of the two individuals who lost their lives so tragically 
on that day, John H. Smith was said to have come from 
New York, but whose parents resided in Philadelphia, 
where they were highly respectable people. He was an 
open-hearted, generous man, much esteemed by his ac- 
quaintances, and when free from liquor, was a quiet, peace- 
able and friendly citizen. 

John S. Barclay was also from New York, where his 
mother and sisters resided. , He had lived at Chinese Camp 
from the year 1850, and was highly regarded there. He 
was possessed of some means, and owned a good claim 
there. But in an evil hour he met the frail Martha, and, 
falling in love with her, married her, upon her promises 
of leading a new and better life. He justified himself for 
the killing of Smith, upon the grounds that he had a right 
to defend his wife from his attacks. Nor does this seem 
an extraordinary assumption at all. 

To arrive at an understanding of how this matter was 
regarded at the time, the following quotations from the 
Gazette are reproduced, written as they were by one who 
certainly manifested no fear of mobs, on this or any other 
occasion: 

"We are not, we never have been, and never will be, the 
advocates of mob law, under any form, or for any end what- 
ever. We live in a community of law; we have courts, law 
officers, and all the well established appliances of justice. 
We sustain them; all good men should do so, or there is 
no safety for any one. We ask any man who looked on 
calmly . (if any could do so), what chance any one stood 
for justice with the throng of Wednesday? No reply' is 
needed from us. The particulars that we give, speak for 



HISTOKY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 197 

themselves. The District Court, under a good Judge, 
opens next Monday; the Sheriff was on the ground; the 
witnesses all live in Columbia; and justice was not ten days 
off; but the mob could not wait. We deeply, sincerely 
regret to give these details; it pains us to record these 
occurrences as having taken place in Columbia, and we 
would gladlj' omit them; but our duty as journalists com-- 
pels us to publish them; they are a blot upon our town. 
We trust in heaven that this may be the last time we shall 
have to perform so disagreeable a task; and we congratu- 
late all those who have had no jDarticipation in these 
lamentable occurrences." 

These are earnest, manly words — words uttered in defi- 
ance of the will and power of a mob whose numbers included 
a whole city; words that do not sound like the truckling, 
lickspittle froth that at similar times has disgraced the 
mouths of speakers and the pages of journalism. 



The Hunter- Drake Shooting Aflfray. 

Later in the year 1855 came the murder of Isgrigg by 
Bessey, and that of Sam. Poole by McCarthy, two cases, both 
of which grew out of low quarrels in ginmills, or deadfalls, 
and which do not possess sufficient interest to warrant a 
narration in these pages. Their mention is only casual, 
being intended to give point to the remark that the year of 
their occurrence was an exceptional one in the matter of 
man-killings. 

A case which occurred in October of this year, although 
not resulting in the death of any party, had, from the well- 
known character of the principals, enough of notoriety 
attached to it to be worthy of mention. This case was the 
shooting of Drake by Hunter in the streets of Sonora. 



198 HISTORY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 

This occurrence originated in the difficulties that arose 
between the miners of Shaw's Flat and the different com- 
panies tunneling into Table Mountain, particularly that 
portion who were drifting into ground thought to belong to 
Shaw's Flat Mining District. The operations of the "La- 
ger Beer " Company infringing upon the " Virginia" Com- 
pany, brought about this state of things, which ultimately 
grew in porfceDtousness until the greatest animosity pre- 
vailed between the rival parties. Shaw's Flat was con- 
vulsed; Table Mountain was (metaphorically) shaken to its 
center. No occurrence bringing the miners into opposition 
to each other had ever so largely and so generally ab- 
sorbed the feelings of the parties contending. The indi- 
viduals immediately concerned in the dispute exerted their 
utmost energies to secure success, nothing being spared 
that might reasonably be supposed to influence victory. 
The most eminent legal counsel were engaged, as well those 
who resided withiu the county, as others of eminence 
abroad. An array of these gentlemen, three upon each 
side, fiercely combated (after the manner of attorneys) with 
each other. Therefore, it was haixlly a wonder that in such 
unquiet times blood was shed before the matter was ad- 
justed. 

Mr. Hunter was a well-known attorney something of the 
browbeating, swaggering stamp, or, at least, whose reputa- 
tion partook largely of that order. He was a little, fussy 
man, doubtless disagreeable in private life, and who, with- 
out doubt, took advantage of the large latitude allowed at- 
torneys in their behavior toward witnesses. On the occa- 
sion of the hearing of the mining case, as counsel for the 
Table Mountain side, he took occasion to severely score 
Eugene B. Drake, a well-known and influential miner of 
the Shaw's Flat party. It would seem that though the 
legal fraternity of Tuolamne county in that time contained 



HISTORY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 199 

men who by intellect and general worth would have done 
credit to any bar, men in whom the communiiy at large 
might feel the greatest pride as citizens and associates, yet 
no doubt some of them frequently allowed themselves to 
overstep the bounds which moderation had planted and 
which gentlemanliness had dictated, in a variety of ways. 
The utmost freedom seems, in some cases, to have been 
indulged in, and disinterested persons were, as is still not 
uncommon, frequently made victims of in the jsrogress of 
a suit. 

After the examination, which was so offensive to Drake, 
the parties met in the "Palace" saloon (then standing 
where Mr. Livingston's shoe shop now is), and came into 
personal collision, resulting in Hunter's being thrown by 
Drake, who was much the larger of the two. Following 
this came another hostile meeting, in front of the Placer 
Hotel (Turn-Verein Hall corner), when Drake seized 
Hunter, and pushed or threw him from the sidewalk. 
"What occurred is well narrated in the testimony of W. T. 
Gilkey, a miner, of Shaw's Flat: 

•'I was present at the difficulty between Drake and 
Hunter. * =i; * Greorge Michael came to me and said 
there was going to be a big row. Saw Drake in fro-nt of 
the Placer Hotel, talking with others. Hunter came up, 
and some one asked him what he thought of Shaw's Flat. 
He said, all right. Hunter passed behind me, crowding 
me from the hotel wall. He was moving toward Drake. 
Drake shoved Hunter from the sidewalk. Hunter turned 
and said: 'You have done what no other man ever did, 
and what no man can do and live.' I, with others, sepa- 
rated them. Drake said: ' Don't touch me; let me alone! ' 
Hunter said: ' Gentlemen, keep away from me!' Hunter 
placed his right hand under his coat tail, on his right hip, 
then raised his hand, in which he held a pistol, which he 



200 HISTORY OF TUOLTJMNE COUNTY, 

cocked as lie raised it. Saw the cocked pistol in his hand 
myself. Drake was slower; at first his pistol caught in his 
clothes, and he had to use both hands. A man had called 
out: ' He is drawing on you, Hunter!' I said: ' Don't you 
draw that pistol, Hunter!' I said it two or three times. 
All this time I had been holding Drake back, telling him 
to keep cool. Hunter was backing all the while. As he 
brought his pistol uj) I jumped out of the way. When he 
fired, Drake said: 'Oh, Lord!' and partly doubled up. 
Then he straightened up, and tried to run behind me to 
protect himself from the shots. Hunter fired again, and 
Drake fired twice in quick succession. Then Hunter fired 
again. I ran and got behind a pile of bricks. Hunter 
was all the time going back. People opposite called out: 
'Hold your shots; hold your fire!' Hunter replied: 'I 
am all right; I have a shot left.' Drake had got to the 
opposite side of the street [Yaney's building] during the 
firing, and above the hotel. He said: ' Get a doctor; I am 
bleeding to death! ' I ran to him, and assisted him to Dr. 
Kendall's office." 

Although the testimony given by the remainder of the 
witnesses at the examination before Justice Wm. H. Ford 
is on record, the stories of all do not differ in any essential 
point from that copied, so the above may be considered a 
pretty accurate account of the affray. 

It was found that three of the four shots discharged ' by 
Hunter had taken effect — one in Drake's left arm below the 
elbow, glancing up and cutting the main artery; the other 
two in the right thigh, about half way above the knee ; one 
shot passing through, the other remaining. He was taken 
to the Placer Hotel and attended by Drs. Kendall and 
Brown, who did all in their power ts save him, but it was 
only by resorting to amputation of the arm that they were 
able to do so. Several days later a second amputation of 



HISTORY OP TUOLUMNE COUNTT. 201 

the injured member was made, and the patient slowly but 
steadily recovered. 

Hunter was unhurt by his antagonist's bullets, but he was 
immediately arrested, and, after the examination, was held 
by Justice Ford to answer to a complaint of "assault to 
commit great bodily harm " before the Court of Sessions. 
Later, when Drake's condition was thought to be nearly 
hopeless, he was re-arrested, and his bail was fixed at three 
thousand dollars. Eventually he escaped punishment, as 
perhaps he deserved to. 

In a subsequent page of this volame mention will be 
made of Mr. Hunter, as connected w ith a very celebrated 
homicide, which occurred at the time o f the war, closing 
with this, his first prominent appearance before the public, 
the record of important events of 1855. 



The Fandango. 

There are some classes of subjects which the sober histo- 
rian, intent only upon presenting a plain and concise ac- 
count of events to his future readers, finds difficulty in 
approaching in a seemly manner. The historical style, un- 
bending to the lighter descriptions of comparatively trivial 
affairs, does not readily adapt itself to the uses of the 
writer who would fain employ his pen to interest the mind 
in its time of relaxation, arousing the merriment or en- 
chaining the sympathies of the curious reader. But the 
fact remains that there are scattered throughout the im- 
mense mass of printed matter which deals with the records 
of this county (as with the common history of every mining 
community in this land) a large number of interesting and 
often valuable reminiscences, mostly personal, and dealing 
oftentimes with individuals of prominence, that deserve 



202 HISTORY OP TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 

and well would repay publication. The mining camps 
have furnished, and will continue to furnish, a limitless 
field for the exertions of the humorous writer. They were, 
and are, rich in pathetic incidents, and the names of those 
who have drawn upon this inexhaustible storehouse of wit, 
^umor and pathos, are fresh in the minds of the English 
speaking world. But jokes, stories and pathetic scenes, it 
may be said, are not suitable materials for use in a book 
like this; nor is ii the intention of the writer to include 
such in an undue degree, nor to give prominence to any 
subject outside the domain of the judicious narrator of 
facts. But there are subjects akin to the lighter walks of 
literature, of which a regard for the completeness of the 
historical picture compels mention. With so much of 
apology for straying from the narrow and well-beaten paths 
of history, a consideration of the memorable institution of 
the Fandango is appended. 

Born in the mystic past, so far back, perhaps, that the 
time and place have been forgotten; ancient, so ancient 
that, like the pyramids, it has seemed old even at the re- 
motest epochs; perhaps even instituted in the Garden of 
Eden, suggested by the thought that the clothing of that 
date was, perhaps, aptly suited to the rise of the Fandango; 
nurtured in the warmer torrid regions, and penetrating 
northward, it found its chosen habitat, at last, in Spain. 
Crossing thence to Mexico with the gallant Cortez and his 
devoted band of heroic thieves and murderers, it came into 
fashion in that land of tortillas and frijoles, and taking on 
additional joroperties, it thrived apace among aristocratic 
hidalgos and lowly peons. The solace of the poor child of 
oppression, creeping forth at night from his mud hovel, 
the resort of the brigand whose time was given up half to 
robbery, half to love, it also served to while away the wak- 
ing hours of the grandee whose herds browsed upon 
thousand hills. 



HISTORY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 203 

The national institution of a country whose people 
spread themselves over California, the Fandango, hither 
came, with all the concomitants of Senor, Senora, gidtarra, 
enchilada and tomal, taking rank from the fii'st as important 
in the public estimation, hardly equaled by the more ath- 
letic but less seductive bull-fight — twin spectacle; gross 
pleasure, cruel torture. Wherever the lazo was thrown, or 
the cigarito smoked, not far away throve the Fandango, in 
greater or lesser majesty. Taking on importance from the 
reckless prodigal support of the burly, red-shirted Ameri- 
can miner, to whom gold was but as the dust moved by the 
idle wind, the new importation waxed strong, furnishing 
an amusement not out of keeping with the men of that 
time. Its votaries were not alone the brutal and the igno- 
rant, for many a son of pious training, many a respected 
grey-headed former resident of staid and moral Eastern 
communities, were found pursuing the lascivious pastime 
through the merry mazes of the dance, while even the 
cloth itself, as we are told, disclaimed not the seductive 
blandishments of the dark-hued syrens, daughters of Terp- 
sichore, whose many twinkling feet and far-extending and 
lavishly displayed charms lent enchantment to the views 
of men in whom the hot blood of youth beat, untempered 
by any very severe asceticism. 

Spreading wide their portals for the motley train, the 
Fandango house flourished, the arbiter of pleasure and of 
play. There the tinkling guitar, with soft, lascivious strain, 
kept time to the song from Italy, the step from France. 
The midnight orgy, the mazy dance, the smile of beauty 
and the flush of strong drink, for fools, gamesters and all, 
combined to energize the subject they pursued, giving both 
the devil and his dance their due, where fools' paradise 
might seem dull to what there passed through the fleeting 
hours of niii;ht. 



204 HISTORT OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 

Various were tlie differeBt styles of Fandangoes; imi rov- 
ing upon the unfastidiousness of their Mexican cousins. 
Sonora boasted among her five houses devoted to this spe- 
cies of entertainment, of a palatial centerj wherein all 
that art and elegance might do was brought to their aid. 
In stylish and brilliantly lighted room, girt around and or- 
namented with priceless pictures, costly furniture, and 
lined with Venetian mirrors, to reflect back the scenes they 
witnessed, and provided with a bar, from whence the cost- 
liest liquors, the rarest wines, were dealt out with unspar- 
ing hand, grew the American edition of the Fandango in 

all its glory. There F a, in all her youthful elegance 

and fashion, shone upon the gaze of wondering men, S 

F and £ D , then infants in her arms. The 

polka is being done up in the style Parisian. There is a 
sort of Gallic fraternization about it that leaves the unso- 
phisticated beholder in doubt, like the citizen before the 
artist's picture, which is t'other. 

But this Fandango is not the Fandango in its unsullied 
jDurity; for that, one must search further up Washington 
street, for the genuine article exists on the lot behind the 
"Long Tom," uucontaminated by the elevating influences 
of modern French or American civilization. Long before 
one sees the flickering light that warns the wayfarer of its 
presence — as warns the mariner the lighthouse that denotes, 
the sunken rock— break upon the organs of smell the start- 
ling evidences of its existence. In the simon-pure Fandango 
the air is stifling; oxygen, like virtue and all decency, has 
long before taken its flight. Upon the scene the tallow 
candles cast a feeble glare, and the smoke of cigaritos and 
cheap and bad cigars fills the room with a dim haziness. 
Through the murky gloom the dancers are moving with a 
perfect looseness, a crowd of men, spectators of the scene, 

line the sides of the apartment, while the perspiring gui- 



HISTORY OB TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 205 

tarist and the catgut-torturing fiend of the violin lustily 
horrify the drowsy ear of night with uncouth sounds from 
their dyspeptic instrumants. "Hands across!" "Back 
again!" "Aleman left!" break through the foggy, murky 
atmosphere from the corner where stands the director, 
rendering into discordant English the calls of the cotillion; 
and the heavy thud of the miners' nail-clad boots empha- 
sizes the turns of each figure with double-shuffle, heel-and- 
toe and pigeon-wing. With a twang of the strings and a 
parting rattle of boot heels the dance ceases abruptly, and 
each male participant, gringo or cahallero, leads his fair 
partner to the bar, to refresh her delicate nerves with a 
glass of brandy and water — a custom religiously adhered 
to at the conclusion of each dance, that " steam " may be 
kept up to the proper pitch. 

In the crowd about there are mingled the extremes of 
cosmopolitan society. Every race under the sun seems to 
have sent its representative to honor the Fandango. On 
either side sit swarthy, filthy, vermin-infested greasers, 
wrapped in dirty serape, and puffing cigaritos with imper- 
turbable nonchalance. The Sydney convict, with under- 
hung jaw and furtive grimace, comes next, elbowing per- 
fumed gentlemen in broadcloth, titled with Major, Colonel, 
Judge, or Alderman. In corners lounge handsomely 
dressed young gentlemen, having the appearance of clerks 
in mercantile hou ses. Sporting men are also there to assist 
in the display of animated nature ; and physicians and 
lawyers, the victims of clients and patients, or of hereditary 
laziness. The seaoras, of brown complexion, of scanty 
habiliments, of plumptitudinous figure, urge on the merry 
rounds iintil the wee small hours approaching tell of ex- 
piring night; then homeward, not unguarded, under the 
gleams of Venus' star, hasten, with not reluctant feet, to 
silence and repose. 



206 HISTORY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 

For a respectable towu. with liigli pretensions to good 
character, doubtless Columbia enjoyed as much excitement 
and commotion through Fandangoes as any place else. 
From the earlier days, tbe authorities of that city, with a 
feeling more nice than wise, attempted to patch up laws 
which were imagined to be suitable to the time and place, 
tending, as was thought, to throw an atmosphere of gen- 
tility around her institutions which was entirely foreign to 
the nature of the concern, and quite opposite to its spirit. 
As well might it have been attempted to imj^art a high de- 
gree of delicacy to a bull fight, as, through municipal regu- 
lations and enactments, licenses, and the watchful care of 
officials, ward off or prevent the natural consequences that 
flowed from Fandangoes, 

The first Board of Trustees, in a formidable onslaught 
on the enemy, interdicted the use of drums and trombones, 
and the sweet sounds necessary for the measures of the 
giddy dance were prescribed to issue from the dulcet flute, 
the neighborly piano, the effeminate guitar, the agile violin. 
Thus did the first reform savor of j)eace and gentility. 
Died away the warlike roll of the drum, and the brassy 
voice of the trombone ceased from out the land. The law 
was triumphant; and save the wakeful cat, the hilarious he 
who runs amuck, and the watchful chanticleer, no sounds 
there were to break the dreams of the softly sleeping citi- 
zen. No more were the delicate nerves of valetudinarians 
to be shocked by the blare and crash of a regular fandango 
band in full blast. Next, fandangoes "were ordered and 
directed to go out of operation upon Sundays, that they 
might no longer offend the day devoted to qniet, to repose, 
and the discharge of grateful duties for the manifold bless- 
ings enjoyed by man. This, the second measure of reform, 
partook of morality, and gave great satisfaction to the small 
but select portion of Columbia's denizens with whom a godly 



mSTORY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 207 

seeming was a desideratum. At a later date, midnight was 
also fixed as the hour of closing fandango performances, a 
law being arranged to meet this requirement. This, the 
third measure of reform, partook of quietude, of temperate 
indulgence. Thus, through the law, there were gentility, 
morals and temperance arrayed against the powers of dark- 
ness, in the guise of Fandango ladies. Fandango keepers 
and Fandango sharps. 

These patchings, however, did not exactly serve the de- 
sired purpose; a Fandango, even if debarred of some of 
its historical j)roperties and curbed of its full effect, was 
still a Fandango, and the later town authorities determined 
to hedge it around so as to prevent its spread, as an infec- 
tious disease is sometimes surrounded. They resolved, 
therefore, that but one establishment devoted to Fandango 
should exist within the corporate limits, and that one 
should be licensed and protected; which was as reasonable 
as declaring that there should be but one saloon, one gro- 
cery, one sausage mill. Later still, these town officers 
were seen recognizing two establishments, ujDon which a 
tribute of an enormous sum was laid for the privilege of 
keeping open. These and other ordinances were passed by 
them; but, despite the law, despite the shif tings and turn- 
ings of town officials, despite the old and new measures of 
gentility, of temperance and of morals, the institution re- 
mained, curbed and shorn of its original proportions, but 
still the Fandango as of yore. And the subject of abol- 
ishing them was never openly met, because the evil, if it 
be one, received the support of the great mass of the toil- 
ers, the power that always settles such questions. 



Noted Robbers and Robberies. 

No history of Tuolumne county would be complete with- 
out a reference to such noted robbers and highwaymen as 



208 BISTORT OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 

Joaquin Murietta, Tom Bell and other celebrities, who 
have in times past graced this region by their presence. 
Neither Joaquin nor Bell performed most of their desper- 
ate exploits within the limits of this county, but the 
former's existence was pretty closely identified with 
affairs in these mines, and as such it is proper that some 
space should be reserved herein for his adventures. 

Almost the only authentic data which relate to the life 
of this desperado are only to be gathered by word of 
mouth from those living residents of the Southern Mines 
who knew Joaquin and watched his career. Of these, prob- 
ably Hon. Caleb Dorsey, of Sonora, is best qualified to 
supply facts relating thereto, as he was, through a re- 
markable chain of events, brought into close relations 
with the noted robber and his band. Time and romance 
have thrown such a glamour around the chief's exploits 
and adventures that almost no dependence can be placed 
upon the multitude of stories concerning them, which have 
gone the rounds of the press. Of all the mass of so-called 
recollections of the man who was at the time the terror of 
the mines, scarcely a thing has been said that does not par- 
take of the grossest exaggeration. To begin with, the 
story of the outrage upon his wife by Americans, and Joa- 
quin's consequent oath of undying hatred toward his ene- 
mies and all their race, is, most likely, untrue. 

Again, a great part of the affected chivalry and regard 
for their word, of Joaquin and his gang, is, as might be 
expected, a gross exaggeration, worthy of the minds of 
those who concoct ten-cent novels and New York Weekly 
stories. No doubt that Joaquin did evince on one or more 
occasions a decent respect for the laws of humanity and a 
regard for truth that was becoming, to say the least; but 
why, if a vulgar thief and jail-bird tells the truth once, as 
a relief to a long series of lies, and refrains from murder- 



HISTORY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 209 

ing a boy or an old woman when his hands are stained with 
man's blood, why should these not remarkable circum- 
stances be made to shed a halo about his memory when his 
rascally and unprovoked deeds should consign him to 
everlastinjj infamy ? They deserve blame who regard Joa- 
quin Murietta, or any other thief and murderer, in any 
other light than as a vulgar, despicable criminal, who took 
life because his own bad passions impelled him. That it 
is and has been the fashion to hold up to public applause 
and reverence the worst characters, the most reckless and 
culpable law-breakers, there is no doubt. And that the 
influence of one man's guilty career, when glossed over, 
and its moral perverted by the arts of the writer, is bad, 
deplorably bad, there is the evidence of prisons and 
reformatories to prove, filled to overflowing with humanity 
whose instincts and moral sense have been perverted by 
trashy works of fiction, whose object is to make interesting 
and attractive that which in its naked deformity is 
repulsive. 

The definite and positive information which can now be 
gathered of Joaquin Murietta represents him to have been 
a resident of Martinez, near Saw Mill Flat, in the early 
part of 1852. Previous to this his history is not known in 
the least, unless it be so to his own countrymen, the Mexi- 
cans. At that time he had not commenced his career of 
open robbery, but was addicted to a more underhanded 
kind of thievery, that is to say, he was a monte dealer; and 
in company with a number of other scamps, engaged with 
him in the business of fleecing his fellow countrymen and 
such low trash of other nationalities whose tastes and 
ignorance led them into the sharpers' clutches. Graduat- 
ing from this trivial occupation to the more exciting and 
probably more lucrative one of footpad, or in more magnifi- 
cent language, highwayman, Joaquin and his band com- 



210 HISTORY OF TUOLUMNE COCNTT. 

mifcted several outrages in that neighborhood, and being 
tacitly supported by the entire Mexican population, then 
very large, he easily evaded arrest. The sympathies of his 
countrymen were with him throughout his infamous career, 
as too oii en they have been with thieves, robbers and brig- 
ands. For a time a state of affairs existed in Tuolumne 
County which has had no parallel in the United States 
since, unless it be the affair of the James boys, in the Miss- 
issippi Valley. The officers of the law were put in defiance, 
the authorities were powerless, and even a display of milit- 
ary force was insufficent to overawe the outlaws. More 
than once, even after a price was set upon his head, Joaquin 
entered the camps where people were in arms against him, 
and once was even said to have entered a saloon in Sonora, 
and leaping upon a table, to have proclaimed himself as 
the famous bandit; and then coolly springing down, to have 
passed out from the midst of his enemies, and escaped on 
horseback, unscathed. But whether this story, widely told 
and almost universally credited as it is, is true or not, is one 
of those things that, as Dundreary says, " No fellow can 
find out." Nor is it alone in being so. The history of 
Tuolumne County in its entirety, has had to be sifted from 
among stories which bear the stamp of exaggeration, or of 
entire untruth; or else like the above, are doubtful. 

It is pleasant to return from delving in the maze of wild 
stories and improbable narrations, to the lucid, plain and 
logical account of Mr. Dorsey, concerning the cause and 
results of the somewhat noted " Battle of Saw Mill Flat;" 
and that the reader may share in the pleasure, the gentle- 
man's own words are reproduced as far as possible. Mr. 
D. was engaged in the summer of 1853 in lumbering on the 
Flat, being a jDartner in the firm of Dorsey, Jacobs and 
Smith, owners of a saw-mill, one of the two then in exist- 
ence there, the other one being the property of Messrs. 



HISTOBY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 211 

Turner, Bennett and Stacy. IraMcCrae, a prominent man, 
kej)t a store on the Flat, and was a buyer of gold-dust, as 
a part of his mercantile affairs. For several days Messrs. 
Dorsey, McCrae and others had been meditating the cap- 
ture of Joaquin, who still maintained hig headquarters at 
Martinez, near by. Finally word was brought that the in- 
dividual was at a fandango which was running. Without 
loss of time the before mentioned gentlemen proceeded to 
the house, and entering, ordered the music to cease. No 
resistance was made to their commands, but upon question- 
ing the dancers, every one denied that the man was present, 
or that he had been there. " He was," they said, " most 
probably many miles away." Mr. Dorsey fell into conver- 
sation with an ordinary looking Mexican, upon the subject 
of Joaquin's whereabouts, and was informed with the most 
charming' innocence that it was very foolish to attempt to 
arrest the brigand, as he would never be taken alive. To 
this the reply was made that it did not matter how he was 
taken, alive or dead, for the Americans were bound to have 
him in some shape or other; after which the seekers took 
their departure. No doubt the expedition were intensely 
surprised and a good deal discomfited when, on their return 
to the Flat, they were informed that the very man who 
held Mr. D. in conversation was Joaquin himself ! Shortly 
after, an attempt was made to destroy the lives of many 
persons, by poisoning the waters of the spring which fur- 
nished a supply of water to a portion of the residents of 
Saw Mill, but this failed, owing to the extreme diffusion of 
the drug that was used. This incident, well attested as it 
is, will show clearly how much of magnanimity and gener- 
osity there was in the robbers. To poison unsuspecting 
men is not like the heroic soul that some have professed to 
believe Joaquin to be. 

Immediately after this episode, it became known that 
Messrs. Dorsey, McRae and Turner had become marked by 



212 HISTORY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 

the outlaws, and that their death had been resolved upon. 
Such information could not fail to act upon the minds of 
any men; and one of the trio, Mr. Turner, did actually seek 
safety in another and less dangerous locality. The others, 
not daunted, remained at their customary occupations, but 
doubtless went " heeled" for any sudden emergency. 

The next sensation came from the report that McRae's 
store was to be robbed on that very night. A messenger 
rode to Columbia in haste, and the military company of 
that place was collected, and it immediately set out for the 
scene of the expected hostilities. Revolvers and rifles had 
been cleaned and loaded, their hats decorated with patriotic 
feathers, and the little brass cannon, used for doing service 
on great days in firing salutes, was brought along. Firing 
the little two-inch cannon about once in every hundred 
yards, the command finally arrived at their destination, 
Col. Tom Oazneau in commanl. It was soon seen that 
this imposing force would be of no use, for no attack was 
made, nor was any seriously meditated. The military, 
however, gave a good example of their destructive powers 
by charging upon the eatables and the drinkables, com-^ 
l^letely cleaning out the small supply of both that was then 
held at ^the Flat, and rendering it ever since a doubtful 
question whether it wouldn't have been better to be robbed 
by Joaquin's men than to be protected by Cazneau's. 

Thus far Mr. Dorsej^ had been recognized by the outlaws 
as a principal enemy, and so regarding him, it would have 
been almost certain death had he been surprised by them 
with the odds against him; but now occurred a series of 
incidents that transformed their enmity into toleration; and 
Mr. D.'s account of these runs as follows: 

While prospecting for gold on the North Fork of the 
Stanislaus in company with several friends, it became 
necessary for Mr. D. to return suddenly to Sonora. Start 



HISTORy OF TUOLUMNE COUNTT. 213 

ing sufficiently early in the day, lie would have got through 
to town on the same evening, had it not been that while 
crossing the hill above the South Fork, he became uncer- 
tain of his way, and feariDg to descend the hill lest the 
ground become impassable, he dismounted and made pre- 
parations to camp at a sj)rJng near by. After getting com- 
fortably fixed for the night, a gang of six Mexicans rode 
up and also made preparations to pass the night. After 
cooking supper, they called Mr. Dorsey to share their re- 
past, which, being concluded, songs were sung before the 
party retired to rest. In the singing, as their suspicious 
visitor noticed, a certain one-eyed man took the lead. This 
observation, it will be seen, has an important bearing on 
what followed. Retiring to his own ground, Mr. Dorsey 
slept the sleep of the tired, even in the midst of danger; 
for it was well known to him that he was regarded as an 
especial enemy b}- the Mexicans; but he had reason to hope 
that these people did not know him, even if they were of 
the outlaws, as he surmised. His intuitions were correct; 
for, when morning dawned, the Mexicans arose, prepared 
breakfast, and again invited their neighbor to partake witU 
them, and this invitation, as the other, was accejDted, as the 
guest did not think it prudent to decline. After doing- 
justice to the viands, all were about to ride off, when the 
leader of the band, calling Mr. Dorsey aside, demanded 
sternly of him, under pain of death, that he give his word 
of honor not to divulge the fact that he had met them. 
Under the circumstances, it is no wonder that the gentle- 
man did as requested. Subsequently he learned that his 
entertainers were indeed a portion of Joaquin's band, and 
their mission on that trip had been to steal horses. 

This novel experience was followed by an equally novel 
one, but one in which the element of danger was lacking. 
A Mexican charged with stealing horses was incarcerated 



214 HISTORY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 

in jail in Sonora. Demanding counsel, Mr. Dorsey was 
sent for by the attendants. Upon entering the jail, the 
prisoner proved to be no other than the one-eyed musician 
of the previous paragraph. He, perhaps even more sur- 
prised than Mr. Dorsey, explained the estimation in which 
the latter was held by his compatriots, and solemnly an- 
nounced that if they had known him on the night of the 
meeting at South Fork, they would have shot him to 
strings. Now, however, the case was reversed; and Mr. 
Dorsey, while agreeing to defend the criminal and use his 
utmost exertions to free him, received in turn a promise 
that he should not in future receive harm from the outlaws. 
This, the prisoner said he would pre-^ail on Joaquin to 
sanction. The result was, that, while Mr. Dorsey lived 
unmolested by the bandits, the prisoner — through the rep- 
resentations made to the Grand Jury in regard to the situa- 
tion of Messrs. Dorsey and McRae with reference to the 
gang, and their promise not to carry out their threats of 
vengeance — escaped indictment. 

Later on, an affray occurred at Sawmill Flat, which re- 
sulted in the wounding of Claudio, Joaquin's lieutenant. 
It seems that a Mexican had been detected in stealing a 
pistol, and while Constable John Leary of Columbia was 
attempting to make his arrest, several Mexicans rushed to 
their companion's assistance, Joaquin himself took a hand 
in the fight, and, although shot at repeatedly, made his 
escape. Not so fortunate was Claudio. This person, who 
was a mere youth of eighteen or so, was very badly wounded. 
Lying upon the top of a hill up which his pursuers had to 
advance, he emptied his two six-shooters at them before 
they could reach the spot. Advancing with cocked pistol, 
the Constable was about to blow the youth's brains out, 
when Mr. Dorsey interfered, saving his life. Badly 
wounded, Claudio was borne to the hospital, there to re- 



HISTORY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 215 

main until his naturally strong constitution enabled him 
to recover from his dreadful injuries. While convalescent, 
he, in an interview with his preserver, corroborated what 
the one-eyed man had told concerning the oaths of ven- 
geance taken by the band, but said that as the former cul- 
prit had got free, if they would undertake to secure his 
safety, he would see that those promises were carried out; 
at the same time promising Mr. Dorsey that the whole band 
should leave the county and go to Mexico, never to return. 

When asked on what security these promises were to be 
fulfilled, he answered proudly: "Sir, you have the word 
of honor of a highwayman !" which was pretty lofty language, 
considering the speaker. 

On sending for Joaquin to come in and sanction the 
treaty, that individual refused to honor Sonora by his pres- 
ence, but assented to the arrangements which Claudio had 
made. And the Grand Jury proving facile, the young 
criminal escaped. 

Once again it was Mr. Dorsey's fortune to come in con- 
tact with the gang. This was while on his way to a session 
of Court in Mariposa County, when he fell in with and took 
dinner with Claudio and other members, at Moccasin Creek, 
v^^here he found them encamped by the roadside. Claudio 
then represented that they were on their way to Mexico, 
and he took occasion to renew his promise of the present 
of a splendid horse and trappings to his guest in return for 
the favors done bim. Leaving the camping place, Mr. D. 
proceeded up a steep hill, and on the way met a horseman 
magnificently mounted, whom he soon recognized as the 
redoubtable Joaquin himself. Both drew their pistols, 
and a conflict seemed imminent, when the Mexican, hold- 
ing up his hand, cried out: "We keep our word; you are 
safe, sir!" And, re-assured, the traveler passed on, having 
met the scourge of the mines for the last time. It was not 



216 HISTORY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 

long after that the notorious brigand fell by the hand of 
Captain Harry Love; and his head, which was exhibited 
in Sonora, was inspected by Mr. Dorsey, who knew him so 
well in life, and who, to silence the doubt which has been 
expressed as to the certainty of Joaquin's death, says now, 
unqualifiedly, that it was the head of the man whom he 
knew as Joaquin. So that matter rests. 

Lieutenant Claudio met a befitting fate upon the gallows, 
being hanged for horse-stealing, down in Los Angeles 
County. And i? the grimnessof the joke may be pardoned, 
Mr. Dorsey still expresses himself in doubt whether or not 
the horse which Claudio was trying to steal was not the 
"splendid animal with gorgeous trappings" tbat dashing 
young robber promised him while immured in jail in 
Sonora. 



* Murder of Bond by McCauley. 

The year 185G was not comparable with the preceding 
year for the number and interest of its homicides, for but 
one occurred which was in any way noticeable among the 
great numbers of crimes of that nature which have trans- 
pired in this county. This case was the murder of Bond 
by McCauley, under circumstances of great atrocity, which 
are recorded as follows: 

Bond, the victim, resided at the Flat, where he followed 
the occujpation of miner, and was a highly respected young 
man of unblemished character. His murderer, Edward 
McCauley, was a large, strong fellow, a rough of pro- 
nounced type, whose occupation, if he had any beyond 
quarreling and fighting, is not set down. Andrew J. Carr 
and Tom McCauley, his aiders and abettors in the murder 
the latter his brother, were of precisely similar type. In 
the course of a trial for larceny, held in the Justice's 



HISTORY or TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 217 

Court at the Flat, Bond had been an important witness 
against the McCauleys, thereby incurring their bitterest 
enmity. The evidence given before the Coroner's jury, 
following the sad occurrence, was, in brief, to this effect: 
Bond was sitting with friends in a saloon in the village, 
when Ed. McCauley entered, and addressing Bond, said, 
"You swore rather hard against the boys last night." 
Bond answered — " I spoke the truth." McCauley rejoined 
that Bond was a liar, upon which the latter, seeing several 
persons around whom he judged to be ill-disposed to him, 
started to leave the room, but was met at the^door by Carr, 
who pushed him backward into the room, and a scuffle en- 
sued. Bond, excessively aggravated, drew his revolver and 
shot Carr, directly after which Ed. McCauley approached 
Bond from behind and stabbed him with a bowie-knife in 
the left side. Being released from his enemies, Bond 
started homewards, and reaching his cabin, died within ten 
minutes. Carr djang at nearly the same minute, his friends 
the assailants of Bond followed the latter to his cabin, 
shouting that thej^ would "cat his heart out and laj) his 
blood !" 

Rather slower than was usual in those days in raising a 
mob to lynch the murderers, Sonora was communicated 
with, and Sheriff Jim Stuart, with deputies Sedgwick and 
Cogswell, were quickly on the ground, preparing to resist 
the swarm of excited men wjio had now gathered around 
the house wherein the two prisoners were confined, they 
having submitted quietly to arrest by the proper officers as 
soon as the murmurs of the lynchers began to be heard. 
Sheriff Stuart made his ijreparations, and entering the 
building, placed himself on one side of Ed. McCauley, with 
Sedgwick on the other, and with the remainder of his force 
escorting the brother, the door at a given signal was thrown 
open and the officers rushed out. Severe resistance was 



218 HISTORY or TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 

made, but the suddenness of the onset deprived it of effect, 
and the officers gained their horses, taking their prisoners, 
still manacled, in safety to the County Jail. Just when 
leaving the Flat a shot was fired at the Sheriff, which came 
near terminating his existence; but no notice could be taken 
of it, and the party rapidly proceeded. 

The trial of these worthies excited the greatest interest. 
It ended in sentencing Tom McCauley to State's prison for 
ten years, while the more guilty Ed. was consigned to the 
gallows, meeting that merited fate on December 11, 1857, 
in company with Lyons and Poer, the murderers of Blakes- 
ley, in that year, but which it is judged proper to now de- 
scribe. 

The Blakesley Murder. 

This oceured at Lyons' Ranch, near Curtis' Creek, and 
about four miles from Sonora. The ranch was occupied by 
three brothers named Blakesley, who had purchased it from 
the former owner, a brother of Jim Lyons, of fighting 
memory, and who figured in the celebrated Lyons-Hazel- 
tine-Duffield fight in the streets of Sonora, in 1854. 

The Blakesleys, or Blakelys,were sitting at supper in com- 
pany with one Verplank, between the hours of six and 
seven P. M, Saturday, February 14, 1857, when they were 
fired upon from the outside of the window, and one of the 
brothers, John Blakely, was shot in the back. All instantly 
jumped to their feet, the light was blown out, and they fled 
for safety through the back door of the house into the wood 
beyond. John Blakely fell at the door; his brother Wil- 
liam, lingering a moment to seize a rifle standing in the 
corner, saw a man, who entering the open front door, fired 
at him. This man he afterwards proclaimed to have been 



HISTORY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 219 

E. F. Hunter, the Sonora attorney who figured in the 
shooting- affair previously described. But this proved to 
have been a mistake, as Mr. Hunter with some difficulty 
showed. William Blakely was shot in the arm at that dis- 
charge, a very severe wound being inflicted, which neces- 
sitated amputation. The three survivors escaping, brought 
the news to Sonora. 

Immediately on receiving the intelligence, Sheriff Stu- 
art repaired to the scene, finding that the house had been 
burned in the interim, and after some investigation, pro- 
ceeded in company with Deputy Sheriff Sedgwick to Lyons' 
residence and arrested Lyons, Poer, and a young man 
named Wallace, whom the}' lodged in jail. 

Public suspicion was mainly aroused against these men, 
and after several days spent in jail Wallace was induced to 
confess the guilt of himself and of his accomplices. His 
story was that the crime was planned by Jim Lyons weeks 
before, and that he was made an accomplice through his 
fear of that man. Poer, he said, went into it willingly, out 
of mere recklessness. They left Lyons' residence on Friday 
night while it was storming, and traveled to the Blakeley's 
place and hid themselves in a cave, in which they remained 
all day Saturday. When night approached they left their 
place of concealment and approached the house. Lyons 
had planned that all three of the brothers should be killed, 
so as to leave no one to tell the tale. Mr. Verj^lank's life 
was not plotted against, as his j^resence was unknown. 
Lyons and Poer were to fire into the house from the front 
through the door and window, while Wallace was to station 
himself in the rear of the building and shoot down whoever 
attempted to escape. Lyons, carrying out his part of the 
plan, fired, killing John Blakeley, as narrated. Then Poer 
opened the door and entered, firing on William Blakeley, 
but Wallace who stood at the back door, fired his rifle in 
the air, when the attacked men came out. 



220 HISTORY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 

Immediately when this confession reached the ears of the 
officers, they became convinced that to the Lyons brothers 
belonged the credit of having committed several other assas- 
sinations whose perpetrators had not been discovered. No 
less than four men had met their death in mysterious ways, in 
the vicinity of their abode. These were Slater, a neighbor 
of Jim Lyons, and who was killed on the latter's land; 
Stanley, Lyon's partner, killed while working at a carpen- 
ter's bench; a poor Frenchman living in Sonora, who was 
killed while hunting birds on the same ground; and lastly, 
an ice teamster who was shot while on his wagon. The 
verdict of the Coroner's Jury was that the deceased's name 
was John Blakeley; twenty-nine years of age; born in New 
York, and that he was murdered by Lyons and Poer. 

In the following July they were brought to trial in the 
District Court, Judge Creaner presiding, and the evidence 
beiug such as to conclusively fix the guilt upon them, the 
verdict of murder in the first degree was entered against 
them. 

On the eleventh of December, 1857, the final sentence of 
the law was executed upon Lyons, Poer and McCauley. 
Leaving the jail about noon, under escort of the Mounted 
Corps, of Columbia, the " Greys," of Sonora, and the Saw 
Mill Flat Infantry, they were conveyed to the place of death 
followed by an immense concourse of people numbering 
perhaps five thousand. Tba execution passed ofl:" in the 
ordinary way in which such scenes were usually conducted, 
and there seems nothing deserving extended mention in 
connection with it, except that McCauley shouted just 
before being turned off, " I am going to die game, by 
God!" 



This triple execution was the second hanging which took 
place during 1857. In June previous, a man named Wil- 



HISTORY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 221 

liam V. Davis was executed at Sonora for the murder of a 
Chinaman, near Tiittletown. Obtaining a respite a few 
days before the time set for execution, the prisoner nar- 
rowly escaped lynching at the hands of the fearfully excited 
mob, whose feelings were heightened by the news that 
McCauley had also obtained a delay in his case. At this 
time the County Jail was crowded with prisoners accused 
of high crimes, of whom some half dozen were suspected, 
or convicted murderers. Crowds of angry citizens thronged 
to the jail, demanding that these men should be immediate- 
ly brought forth for the punishment due to their crimes, 
but thanks to the firmness of Sheriff Stewart, and the able 
support of his assistants, an outbreak was prevented which 
would have shed disgrace upon the county. 

With the execution of Lyons, Poer and McCauley, eight 
men had so far paid the foifeit for their crimes with their 
lives in Sonora — two by mob-law, and six by legal process. 



Columbia in 1857. 

During the year 1856, and most likely at the beginning 
of it, a considerable amount of talk was expended in agitat- 
ing the question of the division of Tuolumne into two sep- 
arate counties — the northern portion to be detached and 
formed into a county whose seat should be Columbia. This 
proposition met with considerable support in that town for 
obvious reasons, but as there seemed no plausible excuse 
for such action other than the desire of politicians to form 
new offices which they might control, the matter was soon 
dropped, soon passing from the public mind. 

Columbia's second gi*eat fire occured on August 25, 1857, 
and even exceeded the terrible conflagration of '54, in ex- 
tent of damage. Breaking out in a Chinese dwelling on 



222 HISTORY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 

the north side of Jackson street, the flames could not be 
stayed, and within a very short time the whole northern 
part of the town was burned. The burnt district was com- 
prised within the space between Pacific street on the north, 
Columbia street on the east, Main Gulch on the south, and 
bounded west by the west side of Broadway, Buildings 
which were supposed to have been fire-proof, disappeared 
like magic, shaking faitli in brick walls. 

During the fire a most fearful incident occurred: this was 
the exjolosion of a large quantity of gunpowder in the store 
of H. N. Brown, resulting in the instant death of five men, 
H. N. Brown, William Toomey, J. M. B. Crooks, Dennis 
Driscoll, and Captain Kudolph, and the serious injury of 
several others. 

The well organized and efiicient fire comj)anies of Colum- 
bia, together with assistance from Sonora, did excellent 
service in saving propertj^ until the water in the hydrants 
gave out, rendering their services useless. 

The principal losses on this occasion wei-e the following: 

I. Shotwell, $20,000; White and Wing, 18,000; J. A. 
Jackson, 13,000; Neal& Co., 8,000; P. G. Ferguson, 8,000; 
Donnell & Parsons, 20,000; H. N. Brown & Co., 25,000; 
William Daegener, (American Hotel), 8,000; C. Cardinell, 
(Terpsichore Hall), 13,000; Northrup & Marshall, 7,000; 
Colombo Eestaurant, 5,000; Tim Lewis, G,000; B. Harri- 
son, 6,000; O. P. Davis, 6,000. W. Wheeler, 5,000; I. 
Levy & Co., 15,000; Leavitt & Walker, 18,000; Dominique, 
6,000; Mengendic, 20,000; C. H. Alberding, 10,000; Kas- 
pail, 10,000; Claverrie, 10,000; Geo. Morgan, 6,000; John 
Leary's Theatre, 4,000; Odd Fellows' Hall, 4,000; Chinese 
stores, 25,000. Together with minor losses, the total footed 
up a round half million of dollars. 

Columbia was emphatically down; but she did not long 
remain down, for with an energy worthy of the early times. 



HISTORY OF TUOLUMNE COUKTY. 223 

she proceeded to eradicate the traces of the fire. Brick 
buildings to take the places of frarae ones, were commenced, 
and an air of bustle pervaded the place. From Sotrr & 
Marshall's corner, on Fulton street, up to Hilderbrand's 
bakery, a new and entire row of brick buildings were plan- 
ned to fill the void. From the Post Office to Brown's store 
a range of fii*e-proof buildings were erected. Really elegant 
structures these were, that now remain to grace the town 
at a later day. 

The Town Trustees issued an order changing the grades 
of sidewalks and streets. Heavy teams constantly arrived 
loaded with goods for the new openings. The sound of the 
hammer rang out pleasantly, from daybreak until the close 
of day; and Columbia was soon an almost entirely new city, 
exulting in the hope of a prosperous future. It does not 
seem that the fire was an actual detriment. At least it did 
not detract from the enterprise of the citizens, but on the 
contrary stimulated it, for the newspapers of the succeed- 
ing mouths report a period of activit}^ and energy far in 
excess of the two or three preceding years. 

Shortly after the fire the Trustees took action against the 
Chinese element, debarring them from residing within the 
corporate limits of Columbia, and passed an order that it 
be the duty of the Town Marshal to notify those occupying 
tenements to remove at once. And furthermoi'e, all Chi- 
nese refusing to remove were to be proceeded against as 
public nuisances, dangerous to the safety of the town, and 
injurious to the good character and jDublic name of the cor- 
poration. The penalt}' attached to a violation of this order, 
for each offence, was a fine of not less than fifty, nor more 
than one hundred dollars. 

One 01 the more pretentious structures which grew up 
after the fire was Cardinell's Theatre. It will be remem- 
bered that John Leary had erected in 1854 a so-called thea- 



224 HISTOKY OF TUOLUMNK COUNTY. 

tre in Columbia, but which, in the late fire, had been de- 
stroyed, giving place to the larger structure of Cardinell. 
This building was of wood, but stone foundations were 
laid, and the outside walls were so arranged as to be renew- 
able with stone or brick, when desired. The building was 
on Washington street, adjoining the Gillespie Block, and 
had a frontage of one hundred feet, with a depth of fifty. 
It was two stories in height, the lower portion to be occu- 
pied by stores, saloons, etc., while the theatre was in the 
second story. It cooitained a dress circle or gallery run- 
ning around three sides of the room, and was arranged 
with nearly every advantage of a first-class theatre. The 
space between floor and ceiling was twenty feet, and the 
stage was thirty feet deep. The seats in the pit were re- 
movable, thus allowing the use of the auditori,um as a ball- 
room on occasion, furnishing the largest dancing hall in 
the mines. The largest theatrical companies were or could 
have been accommodated with plenty of room and every 
facility for the production of pieces in a style never before 
possible in the mines. 

The next modern improvement which the growing im- 
portance of the town suggested was the introduction of 
lighting by gas. In the Tuolumne Courier of January 2, 
1858, is to be found an account of the proceedings of the 
Company which introduced this valuable convenience. 

The gas-works were situated on Gold street, in the rear 
of the Broadway Hotel. The price of the illuminating 
material to consumers was fifteen cents per each burner for 
one evening; and in consideration of the privilege of lay- 
ing mains through the streets, the Company agreed to fur- 
nish fifteen lights gratis to the city, besides lighting the 
churches, schools, and other public buildings. The street 
lamp-posts were to be of cedar, turned, and painted black. 
The account speaks of the work being pushed forward vigor- 



HISTORY OT TUOLDMNE COUNTY. 225 

ously; but subsequent issues are dumb concerning gas, and 
it is only by personal recollection that it is ascertained that 
after several months' use, the works and the manufacture of 
gas were abandoned. The cause of the failure was the 
stoppage of the mains by the deposit of tar formed in the 
distillation of wood, which was used instead of coal, the 
material now in common use; added to which the light was 
of poor quality. 

Columbia was incorporated as a city on April 9, 1857, 
her boundaries being as follows: Commencing at a post 
near the Catholic Church and near the road leading to 
Springfield ; running thence north five eighths of a mile 
over the old Columbia Gulch, along the western slope of 
Gold Hill, to a post west of the Gold Spring Road; thence 
east five eighths of a mile to a post in Corral Gulch; thence 
south the same distance to a post on the hill towards San 
tiago; thence to the place of beginning. 

Under the new Act of Incorporation, the following of- 
ficers were elected: For Trustees — A. C. Goodrich, Patrick 
Smith, B. C. Northrup, C. H. Parsons, and Sylvanus Pitts; 
for Marshal — Robert Mullan; for Treasurer— A. E. Hooker; 
for Assessor — J. A. Poor. 

Murder of McDonald and Leary. 

Following next in the chronicles of Columbia's important 
events, came the murder of the above citizens, in November, 
1858. On the 26th of that month Joel N. McDonald, pre- 
viously a police officer in Stockton, but at that time a resi- 
dent of Columbia, and who' had been employed to ferret 
out certain desperate characters whose actions had been 
giving considerable alarm, was killed under these circum- 
stances: McDonald had succeded in inffratiatina: himself 



226 HISTORY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 

with the thieves, and had concerted and carried out with 
them the robbery of a cabin, and all were proceeding to 
McD.'s place of residence to divide the spoils, but perceiv- 
ing a light in the house as they approached, the robbers 
became suspicious, and assaulted him, striking him first 
with a heavy iron, and then shooting him through the head, 
when they made their escape, leaving their victim lifeless. 

On the evening of the following Monday, another mur- 
der, quite as atrocious, was committed. Constable John 
Leary, a most respected and influential citizen, was mur- 
dered while in the discharge of his duty, no doubt by the 
same gang who were concerned in the other afi'air. 

Mr. Leary, with Marshal Mullan, was watching some 
suspected characters, and while endeavoring to detect and 
arrest them on Waldo street, Mr. Leary was kjlled, having, 
it is supposed, come upon them while they were engaged 
in robbing a drunken man, and at the moment of seizing 
one, received a heavy blow upon the forehead, which frac- 
tured his skull, while another shot him through the body, 
the ball passing near the heart. The murderers escaped, 
though fired upon by Mullan. 

Mr. Leary was one of the earliest settlers of Columbia, 
and was a most valuable officer and citizen. His death was • 
universally lamented. 

The next day, two men, Harrison Morgan and Richard 
Wallace, were arrested on suspicion of the latter murder, 
and were taken to the jail at Sonera. Two dnjs later, they 
were removed to Columbia, to be examined by Justices 
Letford, Dodge and Hopkins. 

Wallace confessed his complicity in the several robberies 
that had taken place, bat denied that he was concerned in 
the murder on Waldo street. 

Wallace's testimony, and that of the officers who made 
the arrests, was such as to produce a conviction of their 



HISTORY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 227 

certain guilt in the minds of all; and the Justices ordered 
the men to be remanded to the County Jail. The citizens 
were ordered to withdraw from within the bar, and the of- 
ficers present, viz.. Sheriff Sedgwick, Deputy McFarland, 
Marshal Mullan, Constables Parker and Faughman, and 
ex-officers Carder and Palmer, prepared to leave the Court 
room with the prisoners, by the back entrance, the Sheriff 
and Mullan leading Wallace, and McFarland and Parker 
leading Mox'gan. The people were in great numbers out- 
side the Court, but no noise or commotion prevailed, and 
no difficulty seemed imminent, but as the j)arty passed out 
a rush was made for both prisoners, the mob seizing the 
officers and holding them. Morgan was taken by the 
mob, but, by great efforts on the part of the officers, Wal- 
lace was preserved from the crowd and landed safely in 
jail in Sonora. 

Morgan's life was short. Taken up Broadway and along 
the Gold Springs Road to the flume, a rope was put around 
his neck, and without a moment for prayer, he was run up. 

There is a favorite incident in connection with this hang- 
ing which a decent regard for the feelings of the respect- 
able gentlemen who have often and kindly narrated it will 
not permit the writer to leave out: " At nightfall, a China- 
man, with a basket of vegetables on his head, proceeding 
to Gold Si^rings, brought up all standing against the life- 
less form of Morgan, which knocked off his load and nearly 
ujDset him. Looking up, the affrighted Celestial beheld 
with horror the pallid corpse, swinging to and fro in the 
night wind. He started off at a pace that made his pigtail 
assume a nearly horizontal i^osition, and it is a matter of 
conjecture whether he has yet stopped." 



For the succeeding 3'ears, Columbia presents the ap- 
pearance of a town gradually decaying with the decadence 



228 HISTORY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 

of her mines, and slowly sinking into the half-dead, half- 
living state which is the certain fate of every mining camp. 
Her glories, departing, have left but traces of the once 
prosperous and proud community whose history, replete 
with incidents, would, if fully written out, fill many a vol- 
ume, and which would contain truths more marvelous than 
any fiction. It would tell how five thousand men through 
the long years brought all th*e resources of which man is 
capable to fill up their lives, while they sought for gold 
within the scope of vision of the proud "Gem of the South- 
ern Mines." How they toiled, those who come after them 
can see. Casting an eye over the plains made desolate, 
the canons and gulches eroded to their very foundations, 
hills and elevations demolished, carried away piecemeal, 
that every particle of shining metal should come at length 
into the pvirses of the toilers, the mind reverts to the time 
when the waste was populous, when the solitude resounded 
to the blows of myriads, who came, toiled, died, and left 
the heritage of mines worked out, towns in decay, and for- 
ests devastated. The glories of her career i^assing from 
her, Columbia's decline commenced. Not much remains 
to tell of her history. Here and there through the suc- 
ceeding years a few events worthy of remark took place. 
A fire in the Summer of 1861, which destroyed buildings 
and goods to the value of twenty-three thousand dollars; 
the bursting of W. O. Sleeper's bank, in July, 1865, with 
liabilities of fifty thousand dollars or such a matter, after a 
dozen years of success in a small way; a ditch dispute; an 
occasional shooting scrape, or robbery; sum up the short 
and simple annals of her later existence, where she but lives 
in the shadow of the mighty past. 



HISTORY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 229 

Fire in Sonora in 1861. 

On the seventh of August of this year a fire occurred in 
Sonora, which resulted in a loss of about one hundred and 
fifty thousand dollars. This severe conflagration broke out 
in a house adjoining the Democratic Age office, corner of 
Washington and Yaney streets, involving the surrounding 
buildings, including the Placer Hotel across the street. 

The following were the principal losses: J. and F. Faxon, 
Great Eastern Saloon, $7,000; Lane & Randall, Union Sa- 
loon, $9,000; O. L. Bemis, Placer Hotel, $15,000; L. Quint, 
building corner of Washington and Yaney streets, $4,000; 
C. Burden, furniture and store, $5,000; J. Hall, $10,000; 
H. P. Barber, law library, $4,000; Severance & McLean, 
Sonora and Empire Livery Stables, $2,500; W. E. Carder, 
Democratic A(je, $1,000; Union Democrat material and build- 
ing, $1,500; Dr. W. T. Brown, dwelling house, $2,500; I. 
Selling, dry goods, $3,000; Geo. Bush, saddlery, $2,500; 
John Sedgwick, Fashion Livery Stable, $2,500; Dr. Man- 
ning, $3,000; Dr. King, drug store and stock, $2,000. 



Murder of Judge Brunton. 

On December 2, 18G0, the community was shocked bj 
the news that Judge Thomas C. Brunton, an old and high- 
ly respected resident of Yorktown, had been murdered. 
The deed was discovered by Monsieur Pinchard of Sonora, 
and when examined the body was found to have received 
no less than ten wounds with a knife, three of which were 
each sufficient to have caused death. Besides the thrusts 
which caused these wounds, there were twelve others which 
had taken efiect only in the clothes. The conclusion ' 
reached was that the old man had been reading some let- 



230 HISTORY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 

ters when attacked, and to have made a desperate resist- 
ance, for his heavj' manzanita cane was found broken near 
by. He had last been seen about 8 a. m., going in the di- 
rection where found. 

Judge Brunton had been a marked man for the assaults 
and outrages of villains ever since his settlement in Cali- 
fornia. As already mentioned in this volume, he was 
robbed in 1855 of a large amount of money, which robbery 
gave rise to the Worth-Kittering murder. Subsequently 
other outrages were inflicted upon him, presumably by the 
same set of villains, who, at last, put him out of the way 
to ensure their safety. As remarked by several who re- 
member these incidents, it was the most mysterious affair 
that ever took j)lace within their knowledge. The poor old 
man was for years kept in a state of terror that would alone 
serve to speedily end his life, had not the guilty parties 
seen fit to interpose. Probably the mystery will never be 
unravelled, be the cause what it may, as a score of years 
has elapsed, and most of the prominent actors are doubtless 
dead. 



Military and Political Affairs. 

During the war times political feeling rose to a consider- 
able height in Tuolumne, though none of those unseemly 
scenes resulting in the loss of life or property, which were 
so common in other parts of the State, disgraced the county. 
The reason for this was doubtless the nearly equal strength 
of the peace and war parties. The enthusiasm of the peo- 
ple was perforce compelled to expend itself in the forma- 
tion of companies of troops, and the forwarding of money 
and supplies to the Sanitary Commission. 

Several companies of volunteer troops, infantry and 



HISTORY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY 231 

cavalry, were organized for service in the war, the history 
of whom is interesting. The first organized was the famous 
Tuolumne Rangers, who were recruited in Columbia and 
vicinity, and of whom many were well-known and respected 
citizens. The Rangers numbered at the time of their de- 
parture for service one hundred and nine men all told, 
and were officered thus : 

Captain, D. B. Akey; First Lieutenant, R. Daley; Sec- 
ond Lieutenant, S. R. Davis; Sergeants, J. L. Merriam, S. 
R. Merston and J. McCune. These troops, which were 
cavalry, were enlisted for service on the Overland Route, 
but going to San Francisco in September, 1861, they were 
stationed for a time at Camp Alert, forming a j)art of Col- 
onel P. Edward Conner's Third Infantry Regiment, of Cal- 
ifornia Volunteers, afterwards being transferred to Co. E, 
Second California Regiment of Cavalry. 

The Rangers did not take a very prominent j)art in the 
war, but rendered good service to the Government in 
keeping the Indians in order, being for a long time stationed 
in Humboldt County, on the coast of California, and for a 
portion of the years of 1862-3 at Red Bluff, Tehama 
County. 

In the Fall of '61 recruiting offices were opened in 
Sonora, several companies, independent organizations 
were formed, the object of some of whom was to proceed 
to the theatre of warfare and engage in the defence of • 
the Union, while others were simply Home Guards, whose 
object was to restrain the acts and expressions of disloyal 
people. 

At the date mentioned Fred Faxon was engaged in or- 
ganizing an artillery company, while James Lane, Esq., 
was recruiting a company of sappers and miners. Captain 
Watson organized a company of Home Guards, who used 
the arms and equipments of the old Sonora Greys. Don 



232 HISTOEY OP TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 

Pedro Lepi formed a company of Mexican Home Guards, 
forty-eight in number, and an infantry company was formed 
at Jamestown, and another at Severance's Old Mill, in the 
mountains. 

The Sigel Guard, of Sonora, organized in April, 18G2, 
were Home Guards. Their officers were, H. K. White, 
Captain; S. B. Blaisdell, H. B. McNeil and J. C. Adams, 
Lieutenants; Theodore Lopez, K. McPherson and H. H. 
Sanford, Sergeants; W. S. Cooper, John Richardson, John 
Barry, D. O. McCarthy and Oliver Wolcott, Corporals. 
Armory in Street's building. 

Chinese Camp, too, had her military company, which was 
commanded by Captain W. H. Utter, with Lieutenants C. 
Mann, G. H. Fisher and Dan Vedder; Sergeants T. Cutler, 
Dr. Alex. Dawson, T. Pierman, W. T. Birdsall and Ben 
Lincoln; Corporals Offman, Powell, Goodwin and Stair, 
and forty- odd privates. 

In this connection mention of the " Tuolumne Home 
Guards," of Columbia, should not be omitted, who were 
organized in August, 1861, receiving uniforms and equip- 
ments from the Government, and fitting up for their ex- 
clusive use an armory in Nellis' building. 

So much for the military organizations. In regard to 
the contents of newspapers, it is to be observed that they 
were almost wholly given up to the discussion of political 
subjects and to war news, and to vilifying their neighbors. 
Probably no more violent, incendiary utterances ever eman- 
ated from any sheet than those which appeared in the 
weekly newspapers of Sonora, during the war times. In- 
solent, overbeariug and abusive to the last degree, it is 
quite remarkable that their language, did not lead to more 
frequent displays of personal violence. Judging by the 
columns of these periodicals, their writers were selected 
mainly in accordance -^^'ith their power to blackguard and 



HISTORY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 233 

recriminate; and whole pages were filled with the choicest 
specimens of shrewdly concealed insinuations, or open de- 
fiance and bullying, that the brain of any newspaper writer 
ever inspired. It would prove interesting reading at this 
date, a resuscitation of articles in the old American Flag, 
or its Democratic opponents, but perhaps good fellowship 
and patriotism will be better subserved by allowing such 
matter to rest in its present quiescent state. 

On the other hand, the giving up of their space to un- 
profitable discussions of national aifairs, and to the denun- 
ciation of political enemies, left ^the papers of that date 
lamentably bare of local news upon which the future reader 
might draw for the completion of his picture of the condi- 
tion of affairs in the miues. 



Decadence of the Southern Mines. 

Towards the end of the fifties, the Southex-n Mines had 
diminished so greatly in their output of the precious metal 
that the population began to decrease alarmingly. Instead 
of the thousands who worked in earlier years in the bed of 
the Tuolumne and the Stanislaus, but a few old miners and 
some Asiatics remained. "Where in '55 hundreds delved 
in the plateau around Springfield and Columbia and Shaw's 
Flat, the small results scarce gave encouragement to the 
scores who had worked and re-worked the ground that 
their predecessors had gathered ounces from, in the palmy 
days. The towns were in their decadence. Tumble-down 
houses, adobes falling to ruin in the rain; sidewalks rotted 
away; doors off of hinges, and windows the absence of whose 
lights indicated that the liver too was gone; all these signs 
showed the departed glory of the Mines, and gave even 
more painful promise of a yet deader epoch. And that 



234 HISTORY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 

epoch came: by the end of the sixties but few placer claims 
were worked with good results; the enterprising gold-seek- 
ers had sought more productive fields; by the side of the 
Salmon River, or along the banks of the Grila and Colorado, 
or amid the canons of Montana they resumed their tasks, 
finding, let it be hoped, the reward that their enterprise 
deserved. 

With the departure of the miners came dull times for the 
camps. The stores and saloons, no longer crowded with 
customers, put up their shutters and retired from a business 
no longer profitable. The professiom*l gentlemen mostly 
withdrew from a country where there existed no demand 
for their services. The baker, the butcher, and the other 
tradesmen who ministered to the wants of an active popu- 
lation, sought in other and newer localities the golden 
harvest which had ceased in their former home. 

Ditches and flumes were suffered to go to ruin, and all 
the thousand and one evidences of man's energy and per- 
severance gave token of the day of departed greatness. By 
the close of the next decade the resounding crash of the 
stamp mill had well nigh ceased, and now, in 1882, while 
cue can not say that mining is entirely done — for yet many 
valuable quartz veins and much unprospected placer ground, 
and miles of concealed auriferous river-beds remain — yet 
gold extraction is comparatively at a painfully low ebb. 



Later Events in Sonora. 

The latter years have not been prolific in history. On 
the contrary, there is a dearth of interesting matter strongly 
opposite to the times whose chronicles have already been 
set down. There is to be found one incident of a partly 
personal, partly political vendetta, that made once a great 



HISTORY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY 235 

stir. That was the killing of Davis, aliat^ Keiger, by Mc- 
Carthy. This is its account, aside from doubts, from preju- 
dices and uncertainties: Davis was a merchant, or other 
business man, who had resided perhaps a dozen years 
among the Sonorans. McCarthy was another business 
man, who had pursued the calling of a livery-stable keeper, 
aad finally that of publisher of the American Flag, con- 
ducting that sheet in the war times, when its rabid Union- 
ism drew upon it the violent opposition of all the opposing 
political party. McCarthy counted his enemies as the 
hairs of his head, and of them Davis was one. It does 
not matter what insignificant affair their quarrel began in; 
it is enough to say that, after a season uf newspaper de- 
nunciation, Davis suddenly met his death at his enemy's 
hands, the tragedy occiirring in Steinmetz's restaurant, 
where McCarthy found his man dining. Whatever provo- 
cation was used by the deceased, it was thought sufficient 
to justify the act, for the assailant escaped the consequences 
of his act; and subsequent consideration seems to have de- 
cidedly leaned towards his justification. 



In December, I8G5, occurred the burning of the County 
Jail, with the cremation of Tom Horn. This individual, 
represented as something of a rough, who hailed from Co- 
lumbia, had entered Souora in the progress of a drunken 
spree, and had been locked up. Shortly after, an alarm 
of fire was raised, and Mr. Mills, the Jailor, by the utmost 
exertions, was onl}^ enabled to remove the other prisoners 
from the burning building, leaving Horn, who was un- 
doubtedly the incendiary, to perish in his own bonfire. 
The Jail, which was new, had cost the County thirteen 
thousand dollars, and was almost the only piece of property 
in her possession that was worth boasting of. 



c 



236 HISTORY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 

Later on — in March. 1868 — the United States Hotel at 
Sonora was burned, involving also the destruction of the 
Theater building adjacent, and the partial burning of the 
Episcopal Church near by. The hotel was situated near 
the head of Washington Street, on the ground now claimed 
for mining purposes by Mark Hughes, Esq. , and way owned, 
together with the theater, by Mrs. Greenwood, widow of 
Otis Greenwood, once a prominent lawyer of the place. 
The buildings were unoccupied at the time, and were in- 
sured for two thousand dollars. The flames ignited the 
Episcopal Church, consuming the spire, belfry, the west 
side, and most of the roof, but were then stayed. This 
structure was insured for twenty-five hundred dollars. 

A year later still, or in March, 1867, the suicide of a 
Sonora merchant occurred to disturb the sluggish current 
of events. This was Selig Ritzwoller, a dry goods dealer, 
aged about forty years, and a native of Germany. 

In May, 1870, the " People's Accommodation and Ex- 
press Company " was organized, as a move to secure cheaper 
tares to Stockton, the design being to run a line of stages 
from Sonora and Columbia to that city, the trips to be 
made in ten hours or less, and the pi'ice of a passage 
either way to be not o-^er five dollars. The Trustees of the 
incorporation were Robert Boyd, D. McLean, M. E. 
Hughes, C. H. Randall and H. B. McLean, of Sonora, 
Thomas. M. Byrnes, of Columbia, A. B. Preston, of James- 
town, George Hanna, of Chinese Camp, S. Dingley, of 
Knight's Ferry, Morris Magner, of Stockton, James G. 
Hughes, of Confidence, and James N. Berger, of Roach's 
Camp. 

For one year, or thereabouts, the organization kept to 
its purpose of reducing the fare, and by the month of June, 
1871, the Stockton and Copporopolis Railway having been 
completed to Milton, the People's Company was dissolved. 



HISTORY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 237 

During this period it bad been in competition with the 
stage-line of C. H. Sisson & Co. 

Previously, three lines, those of Fisher. Dillon and Mc- 
Leod, had run lines of stages between those places, but 
through the decline in travel Fi%>her and McLeod were 
compelled to retire, whilo Dooley succeeded Dillon in the 
conduct of his business, and subsequently the firm of Sis- 
son & Co. conducted their traffic unhampered by competi- 
tion. In later years Shine & Co. alone have run the trans- 
portation lines of this region. 

In December of 1870, J. C. Scott was shot and severely 
wounded in the Eififle Saloon by Thomas Newton, alias 
"Texas." The quarrel was of the usual sort, instigated 
b}^ whisky, and the penalty of a term in State Prison was 
meted out to " Texas,'"' who was the aggressor. At a later 
date it will be seen that he served out his term^ and return- 
ing to Sonora, met the usual fate of such desperadoes. 

Later in the files of the local papers is to be found an 
account of a tire that occurred in Sonora on March 31, 
1871, consuming the ante-room of the Masonic Hall and 
the wooden building known as the Riffle Saloon, and doing 
damage to the premises of Jalumstein, Livingston, Street, 
Keil and Oppenheimer. The loss on the Riffle Saloon was 
in the neighborhood of five thousand dollars, w^hile Op- 
penheimer's probablj' exceeded that sum. The remaining 
losses are not stated in the account. 

Charles Thompson, a Swede, living about six miles east 
of Sonora, on the Ward's Ferry road, was killed, on 
November 7, 1871, by Jacob Oliver, another Swede, who 
was suspected of mental unsoundness. The deed was 
committed with an axe. 

A pistol was the weapon with which Mr. J. S. Kimball, 
of Brown's Flat, shuffled off this mortal coil, and the im- 
pelling cause seemed to be that the suicide was tired of 



238 HISTORY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 

living. Mr, K. was a much respected miner, forty-seven 
years of age, a native of Maine, and had mined on the 
Flat for many years. His death occurred May 6, 1872. 

In the following July occurred the trial of William 
Jones for killing John F. Eebstock, aZta-s " Peg Leg," at 
Columbia, in October of the previous year. The case, 
occupying two days, terminated in the conviction of Jones, 
of murder in the second degree, and his sentence by Judge 
Booker to fourteen years' imprisonment. 

Another homicide, dating on the 29th of July following, 
was the killing of W. H. Engles by Thomas Willis, on the 
former's ranch near the Phoenix Reservoir. The killing 
was in consequence of a land trouble, and the weapon 
used was a shovel. In spite of the fact that Willis was the 
aggressor, he was acquitted on his trial in November. 

October of this year was marked by the fall of the 
Democratic flagstaff (which stood between the City Hotel 
and the Washington street bridge in Sonora), thereby caus- 
ing the death of Nicola Blatcovich, who at the time was 
engaged in lowering the topmast, being then seated upon 
the cross-trees, some seventy feet in the air, and meeting 
instant death, when the pole fell from his weight. 

Ah Mow, of Chinese descent, fell by the murderous 
hand of his fellow-countryman. Ah Bun, at Jamestown, in 
1872, and his slayer, tried and convicted of the murder, 
received sentence of death; but to avoid the penalty, the 
craftj' heathen, a week before the time set for his sudden 
taking off, hanged himself in his cell— a common trick of 
condemned Celestial murderers, and one which is said to 
have more tban once cost certain well-known attorneys a 
fee contingent upon a legal hanging. 

Another killing, in September, 1873. This was done by 
a boy named John Gillen, of Columbia, the victim being an 
old Norwegian named Forgar Oldsen, but who was affec- 



HISTORY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 239 

tionately known as "Uncle Harry." This murder, which 
was entirely without provocation, was equally without ret- 
ribution, for the 3'oung man escaped. 

The Catholic church at Sonora was burned on August 7, 
1874, only the walls being left standing. The fire origi- 
nated in a small wooden building between the Priest's resi- 
dence and the church, and owing to the scarcity of water, 
nothing effectual could be done to save the latter building. 
The loss amounted to about three thousand dollars, with- 
out insurance. 

The next sensation pertained to Columbia, and was the 
killing, under eminently justifiable circumstances, of Adolf 
Parou, by Thomas Hayes. Parou met his deserved death 
through the lowest species of immorality, touching as it 
did the well-being and virtue of young school-girlsj and 
probably no manslayer ever met with more general ai^pro- 
bation than did Hayes. 

Toward the last of November of the next year the Phoe- 
nix reservoirs, on Sullivan's creek, broke, from the over- 
charge of waters incident on the heavy rains of that time, 
and did considerable damage from the flooding of the low 
lands below. '' The creek was already booming, and the 
storm was at its hight, when suddenly, high above the 
lashing of the rain and the dash of the roaring creek, 
sounded the distant thunder of the coming waters." At 
first the creek began to swell gradually, but perceptibly, 
then move rapidly, until a great wall of water rolled down 
with thunderous roar, yellow with accumulated mud, and 
bearing upon its foaming crest huge logs and immense 
pieces of timber. On reaching Bergel's place, where the 
Summerville road crosses the creek, the waters hesitated 
an instant, owing to the narrow passage through which 
they had to pass. Then, with a mighty effort, it lifted the 
bridge as if it were a feather, carrying it away and dashing 



240 HI8T0KY OF^TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 

it to pieces in a twinkling. A number of Chinamen had 
formed a settlement on an island near where the road to 
Kincaid Flat crosses. When the waters of the creek began 
to rise, three o(: these men climbed a tall Cottonwood grow- 
ing on the banks of the creek, and were for the moment 
safe, but the wall of waters, rolling twenty feet high, sub- 
merged them, drowning them where they clung." 



The centennial year was marked by one tragedy some- 
what out of the common ran of killings, in that it was 
publicly done, a no less frequented place than Washington 
street, Sonera, being its scene. It had been years since 
the quiet town had witnessed such another high-handed 
outrage, if, indeed, any exactly parallel circumstance ever 
occurred within its precincts. 

On June 6, 1876, Harry Hyde, James Burns and Tobias 
Kichards, all well-known residents of the county, sought 
out James M. Sloan in the livery stable of McLean & Co., 
and entered into a wordy quarrel with him, the evident 
intention being to force a fight upon him. Being unarmed, 
Sloan was only able to offer to fight Hyde, the most per- 
sistent of his tormentors, with his fists ; but to this Hyde 
would not agree, telling Sloan to arm himself. An appli- 
cation to several bystanders for the use of their pistols 
being refused, Sloan proceeded to Howell's gun store in 
search of a weapon, which there securing, he came back to 
the vicinity of the first meeting, but on arriving at the cross 
street, next'to the Long Tom Saloon, he halted and leveled 
his pistol at Hyde, who was standing with his pistol in his 
hand, in front of Wells, Fargo & Co.'s o£&ce (now Pickle's 
Gem Saloon). All who saw the shooting, and a large num- 
ber did so, declare that Hyde fired first, and that his adver- 
sary replied almost instantly. Hyde continued to aim and 



HISTOBY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 241 

fire, but Sloan, finding difficulty in the management of his 
pistol, which was new to him, succeeded in leveling fairly 
at Hyde but twice, his other shots exploding prematurely. 
When his pistol was emptied he held it above his head to 
signify its condition, at the same time turning towards 
Haag's saloon. At this instant, and while his adversaria's 
back was turned, Hyde fired again, and struck his oppo- 
nent in the right side. Going into the " Long Tom," 
Sloan laid his pistol on the counter, while Hyde proceeded 
up the street, where he was arrested by Sheriff Baxter ; but 
at thil juncture, while yet the officer had his hand on his 
prisoner's shoulder, some one interfered, knocking or 
pushing Baxter from the sidewalk into the gutter, thereby 
releasing Hyde, who instantly proceeded down the streei, 
carrying in his hand a loaded pistol which Barns provided 
him with. Sloan, in the meantime, had left Haag's and 
was walking down the street. Hyde followed, undeterred 
by the cries of "Arrest that man! " " Why don't some one 
arrest him ?" from the numerous and excited lookers-on, 
and before Sloan reached McLean's stable, fired three shots 
at him. Turning, Sloan grasped the pistol and wrested it 
from Hyde, who fled across the street, pursued in turn by 
Sloan, who, finding his strength failing, paused at Ryan's 
saloon and threw the pistol at his enemy and turned 
toward the Sonora Hotel (now Mark Hughes' blacksmith 
shop), and, reaching it, sank exhausted and bleeding upon 
the floor, dying within twenty-four hours, from the effects 
of the shot in the side — the only ball that struck him. 

In the course of the town's history hardly an event had 
happened to more effectually arouse the people than did 
this shooting affray, not because two desperate and reckless 
men had fought a duel which resulted in oue's death, but 
because they washed their injured honor in blood that 
dripped in the public thoroughfare at a time of day when 



242 HISTORY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTy. 

many citizens aud women and children were exposed to 
death or injury from the flying bullets. The community 
was also considerably exercised over the idea thai justice 
would not be done — seemingly a well founded fear, as the 
sequel might be interpreted. 

The trials of Hyde for the murder, and Burns and Rich- 
ards as accessories, resulted in the sentence of the former 
to seven years' imprisonment, while the others both escaped 
conviction. 



The less interesting items of the burning of Brodigan's 
*' Sonora Hotel," taking place on June 11, 1877, with a 
loss indefinitely stated, but probably exceeding seven 
thousand dollars ; the suicides of Per Johnson, in Octo- 
ber, 1878, and of Valentine Hahn, aged seventy years, in 
the month of February, 1879, together with some minor 
matters, make up the sum of Tuolumne's history for the 
time until the occurrence of the Texas-Sandoval shooting 
affray, of which the annexed is a brief account; deservedly 
brief, since, were it not for its recentness, there is nothing 
to distinguish it above the numerous other murderous 
affrays born in the plague spot of the Tigre. 

"Texas," otherwise known as Thomas Newton, one of 
the numerous class of men, quiet, but still worthless, when 
sober, but desperate and quarrelsome when in his cups, 
has already been mentioned as the one who inflicted serious 
wounds upon Scott, a bar-tender, a few years previous, and 
who for that offense was confined at San Quentin for a 
term of years. A native of Florida, he had served the 
Government in the Mexican War, and acquired a reputa- 
tion for fearlessness, when once aroused. In earlier years 
he had killed a man in a disreputable house, and at other 
times had had numerous encounters with persons of his 
own stamp, in which he had nearly always come off first 



HISTORY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 243 

best, but frequently with wounds which would have sent a 
man of ordinary tenacity of life into an immediate grave; 
but, as each of this class finally meets his man, so Texas 
fell by the bullet of a foeman he would at other times have 
despised. The affray, in its particulars only a common 
Tigre row, had its origin in a dispute about a female in- 
habitant of that region, taking place in Wollling's slaughter- 
house, and resulted in the immediate death of the unarmed 
Texas, by a bullet wound in the left eye, penetrating the 
brain. Sandoval was acquitted. 



During the year 1880 but a solitary instance, seemingly 
worthy of narrative occurred. This was the death of Father 
John Treinor, from the upsetting of a stage, near Priest's 
Hotel. It seems that Father Treinor, in company with 
several of the parishioners of the Church of St. Lawrence, 
in New York City, whereof he Avas pastor, had left their 
home for a pleasure trip to the Pacific Coast, and while on 
their way to Yosemite, the lamentable accident took place. 
The reverend gentleman was described as a man of the 
highest attainments and of splendid natural abilities. 

1881 proved more fruitful in events, for in that year sev- 
eral interesting occurrences took place to remove the dull- 
ness of the average times. Among these was the killing of 
a Chinaman known as Duck Lee's Brother, by Ah On, in 
the street, near Judge Rooney's house, in Sonora. For 
this the rash Ah On was sentenced to State's Prison for a 
term of fifteen j'ears. 

Then, in order, came the abduction case of Helen 
Armand, by two or more persons, one a woman, the others 
bearing, but disgracing, the form of men; and these low, 
disreputable beings received the merited j^enalty of their 
filthy work in a State's Prison sentence. 



244 HISTORY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 

Then, for a time, the celebrated Bonanza suit of Hughes 
versus DivoU contributed its details, through several 
months, to interest the community, who were patriotically 
rejoiced when the "thoroughbred" Tuolumneites, Messrs. 
Divoll, Colby and others carried their flag to deserved 
victory; and A.rt herself, in the shape of Mr. bears' carica- 
tures, immortalized the progress of the case and the prin- 
cipal actors therein. 

While still the case was peuding, and the contestants 
were gathering up their forces for victory, Mr. E. A. 
Rodgers, a very prominent lawyer, resident of Sonora, 
School Director, and ex-District Attornej^, then acting as 
counsel for the Bonanza Mine owners, was the victim of a 
midnight assassin, who, on the evening of September 20, 
waylaid him near his residence, and fired a shot, which, 
striking its human target^ entered the back to the right of 
the spinal column, and, passing around the ribs, came out 
in front. The wound, deemed mortal at first, fortunately 
did not prove so, a few weeks sufficing to restore the gen- 
tleman to his accustomed tasks. The identity of the as- 
sailant has not so far been established. 

On the preceding evening, the safe in which the County 
funds were kept, situated in the livery stable of McLean, 
Kelly & Co., was robbed, b}' parties who have ever since 
remained unkuowji, of the sum of six thousand eight hun- 
dred dollars in coin. As bound, under his duties as County 
Treasurer, Mr. McLean subsequently made good this sum 
to the County, out of his own pocket, assuming the new 
burden in a manner so quiet and unostentatious as to win 
the sympathy and praise of all. 

Finally, this account arrives at the last great sensation 
which Tuolumne* has known : 



HISTORY 01 TOOLUMXE COUNTY. 245 

X The Bergel Murder. 

Frank P. Gilkey came to Sonora on Saturday, December 
17, 1881, aud srave information that William Bergel, an old 
man of sixty year-5, was lyin? m'lrdare 1 in the rear of his 
wayside inn, two miles east of Sonora on the Sumraersville 
road. 

Coroner Van Harlins^en an I others immediately pro- 
ceeded to the indicated place and found the tidings true, 
the body of Bergel encircled with a rope confining the 
arms to the side, passing also ai'ound the neck. In the 
neck was a knife wound, and the head crushed in, and a 
bullet wound in the temple, showed how life had passed 
awaj'. Circumstances showed that the murder had been 
done for purposes of robbery, Bergel being popularly sup- 
posed to have large sums of money buried, or otherwise 
hidden, in and about the grounds. 

Within a short time of suspense, during which a popular 
feeling of anxiety ran high, the efficient officers Sheriff 
Yancey and Deputy Sheriff McQuade obtained information 
which led to the arrest of Frank Gilkey, the young man 
who first gave information of the tragedy, and Tobias Rich- 
ards, who, it will be remembered, was one of the parties 
to the killing of Sloan a few years past. Besides these 
men, two others have, up to the time of writing, been 
arrested for complicity in the affair, but their guilt not 
appearing they have been discharged. 

The trial of Gilkey and Richards, important as the occa- 
sion was, and attracting much attention, besides the con- 
viction of the accused, left also the pleasanter feeling 
that the legal talent of Sonora is indeed worthy of 
comparison with that of the eai'lier times, when Bar- 
ber, Greenwood, Moore, Dorsey, and other legal practi- 
tioners, f orme d a group of men unexcelled in their 



246 HlSTi)EY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 

profession, and who have left us as a legacy to the 
student and to the reader of this day the accounts of the 
greatest forensic triumphs, the shrewdest counsel and the 
deepest learning. 

Stage Robberies. 

There are, and always have been, two directions in which 
the criminal instincts of felons have most betrayed them- 
gelves, among the Southern Mines. Of these, murder is 
the most deplorable and most prominent, while robbing of 
stages by professional or amateur highwaymen has always 
maintained itself as second in the catalogue of crime. 

With almost infinite trouble and labor, the circumstances 
of nearly every stage robbery that has taken place in the 
county, at dates recent enough to render them of interest, 
have b-^en gathered and are here presented. There were 
two robVoeries in the olden times which merit remark; one 
of them that of the stage of Adams & Co., at Brown's Flat, 
when twenty-five thousand dollars was taken, has been 
previously mentioned. The other was the theft of sixty 
thousand dollars from the Big Oak Flat stage, but con- 
cerniug which no reliable particulars can now be gathered. 

On November 6, 1874, the stages of Shine, and Miller & 
Co. , were stopped by six highwaymen while on the road 
from Sonora to Milton, between the latter place and Salt 
Spring Valley, and the latter stage was relieved of the 
Chinese Camp, and Big Oak Flat express boxes. The 
amount they contained was not made public. 

On March 23, 1875, the mail stage was robbed near Eey- 
nolds' Ferry by three masked men. The passengers, eight 
in number, weie unmolested, though some of them made 
offers of their money, but the treasure box of Wells, Fargo 
& Co. was taken, its contents being valued at six thousand 
dollars. 



HISTORV OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 247 

July 26 of the same year the same stage was again 
stopped at Reynolds' Ferry hill by a single footpad. There 
were ten passengers on board, but in spite of this circum- 
stance, the robber, with his little shotgun, took the treas- 
ure, amounting to one hundred and sixty dollars. Follow- 
ing Shine's stage came McLean & Gardiner's j^rivate stage, 
which was stopjDcd, but allos\ ed soon to proceed. 

The Chinese Camp stage was stopped December 1, 1875, 
in this county, two miles from the Union bridge, across the 
Stanislaus river. The di'iver, J. Gibbons, being alone, had 
to give up the treasure box without resistance. The 
"agent" gained six hundred dollars by tbis haul. 

An unsuccessful attempt was made to rob the Milton 
stage .on November 15, 1876, by three masked men, who 
had stationed themselves near the flume between Brown's 
Flat and Columbia; but John fehine, the driver, disobeying 
their commands to halt, drove on at full speed, thus foiling 
the robberSj who could only display their disajDpointment 
by firing at the rear of the stage. 

When February 24, 1877, came around, the mail stage 
was again robbed at Reynolds' Ferry by one masked robber 
of the heavy villain order, who obtained the treasure box, 
together with a small sum of money, which he took from 
Mr. Milo Hoadley, of San Francisco. His enjoyment of 
the fruits of his enterprise was but short, however, as he 
was captured within a day or two. 

Three men robbed the unlucky mail stage again, near 
CopperopoliSj Sam, Smith driving, and divided the spoils, 
amounting to eight hundred dollars. 

On the 16th of January, 1878, ihe same stage was stopped 
by thi'ee men, at a place on the Brown's Flat road one and 
a half miles from Sonora. Mr. Shine was the driver on 
this occasion, and Messrs. Caleb Dorsey, J. H.. Condit and 
J. G. Divoll were passengers. The amount taken was 



248 HISTORY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 

somewhat over five thouamd dollars. For the crime Pedro 
Ybarra, Richard Bolter and J. Thayer were arrested, ard 
by the following May, Ybarra was sentenced to imprison- 
ment for life; Thayer received eight years, while Bolter 
was set free in consideration of his turning State's evidence. 

On November 7, 1881, the robbery of the Milton stage 
was again reported. This time it took place about four 
miles beyond Tuttletown, near the Garibaldi mine. Four 
masked men appeared and commanded Stringham, the 
driver, to halt, when they broke open two wooden express 
boxes and the iron safe of Wells, Fargo & Co., taking the 
contents, amounting to about three thousand dollars, in 
addition to which they secured five hundred dollars from a 
passenger, Mr. Mundorff, of Sonora. 

The latter robbers were captured through the exertions 
of the Sherifi" and Deputy of Tuolumne county, aided by 
the Express Company, and upon conviction William A^ 
Miller and William A. Miner were each sentenced to 
twenty-five years in State Prison, while their accomplice, 
James Crum, received twelve years. 

On the 3d of February, 1882, the last robbery took place. 
This was of the Chinese Camp stage, the amount taken 
being less than three hundred dollars. The highwaymen 
leaving this region, were followed by officer McQuade, but 
without success, until they were taken by the Exj)ress Com- 
pany's detective in San Benito county. The men, both old 
convicts, gave their names as Frank H. Rolfe and Joseph 
Hampton. Tried and found guilty, they were sentenced 
by Judge Rooney, Rolfe to imprisonment for life, Hamp- 
ton to five years' confinement. 

This closes the tale of stage robberies, if we except the 
account of the unfortunate fellow who stopped Stringham 
last Spring for three long hours, while he labored with a 
dull hatchet to cut open the ii-on express box, then to be 



HISTORY 01 TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 249 

compelled to give it up as a too difl&cult job, and finally, to 
find himself in prison for five years for the offense. 



Railroad. 

The first mention of the probable advent of a railroad 
into the southern mines appears in the Columbia Gazette 
and the Sonora Herald in the year 1852, when the 
announcement was hailed with enthusiasm, and Sonora, 
the emporium, was looked upon as the prospective termi- 
nus of a railway connecting these mountains with San 
Francisco. 

Subsequently, other times of disquiet or discontentment 
with the existing means of transit have given rise to rail- 
way talk. These periods of agitation have occurred at 
rather regular intervals of time, averaging from four to six 
years, and have been characterized by a large amount of 
talk, much newspaper discussion, and deluded hopes. 

The schemes unfolded to accomplish the desirable result 
have been as various as the times in which they were 
broached. Sensible schemes and wildcat schemes; narrow- 
gauge railroads, broad-gauge railroads and one-track rail- 
roads; railroads starting from appropriate places and 
terminating in practicable localities; railroads starting 
anywhere fancy indicated aud terminating wherever imag- 
ination's freaks suggested; railroads whose prospectuses 
showed the authors' sound sense and business views, and 
railroads whose wild ideas told of the visionary specula- 
tor. But all the proposed roads were to pass through 
Sonora. That was the one point upon which all were 
unanimous. 

The most of these schemes emanated from San Fran- 
cisco. Once or twice the citizens of Stocktou had the 



250 HISTORY OF TUOLUMNE OOUNTT. 

matter in hand; but not once have the inhabitants of 
Tuolumne County proposed to take upon their own shoul- 
ders the task of building and running their own rail- 
road, yet that is probably the only way in which the peo- 
ple's wishes will be gratified. It is not to be understood 
that the people of Tuolumne have not always offered aid 
to the various companies who have projected railways into 
their midst. On the contrary, every scheme thus far 
broached has met with a cordial reception, often beyond its 
deserts. Without pausing to consider the practical side, 
the people have, with open hands, welcomed even the most 
absurd projects, confident that if once the whistle of the 
locomotive were to resound in the foothills, the road's ter- 
mination, be where it might, could not diminish the bene- 
fits to accrue to Tuolumne. A trunk line to connect (on 
paper) the unknown and undiscovered system of narrow- 
gauge railways in Nevada with the Pacific shore, but to the 
reflecting mind only penetrating the deserts of the unin- 
habited tract of country in Southern Nevada, after a 
passage of the highest Sierra at an impracticable point, 
then passing through Tuolumne, and with its western 
terminus at some insignificant wayside station near the bay, 
has of late been the most promising scheme which the 
speculativeness of railroad builders has presented. 

Some indirect benefit has resulted from these various 
spasms. The people have become well acquainted with 
the resources of the section — a result of the earnest in- 
quiries into that subject. Ascertaining the cost of a pro- 
posed road, and comparing it with the resources of the 
County, and the probable business which would result, has 
led to the unavoidable conclusion that the County could 
support a road of the least expensive construction, if 
economically managed, by her own local business. In a 
series of able letters to the Tuolumne Independent, in 1875 



HISTORY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 251 

"Progress" stated the obvious advantages which must 
accrue from a railway, in a form which may be assumed to 
be correct at the present time. He said, suggestively, that 
besides the obvious saving of time in the transportation of 
passengers and goods, equal to three or four days on the 
latter, that the reduction of freights was estimated at fifty 
per cent, on down freight, and sixty-six per cent, on up 
freight; that express charges would decrease in like pro- 
portion, and fares equally. Seventy-five stores each ship from 
ten to sixty tons of freight yearly, exclusive of grain, flour, 
and vegetables. Twenty hotels receive from four to twenty 
tons; sixteen blacksmith shops average ten tons each; one 
foundry, one hundred and fifty tons; saloons, three hun- 
dred tons; while the quartz mills, flour mills, and other 
mills and manufactories ship a vast though uncounted 
amount. Sulphurets and rich ores for reduction in other 
places formed then, as now, a prominent item. 

"It costs twenty cents jjer box to ship apples from So- 
nora to Oakdale; by rail it will be about five cents a box. 
One ranch of thirteen acres ships down two hundred tons 
yearly of cider, pickles, vinegar, etc." 

"A railroad," said the writer, "will insure a market for 
everything." Fruit now goes to supply the home demand, 
barring inconsequential driblets Bodiewards, and other 
small exceptions. It should, doubled in^ production, be- 
come a massive export. Alden dryers would fit' it for the 
world's use. Raisins and figs, than which nothing is easier 
to produce, kind nature doing the work, even to drying 
them properly, being fifteen cents per pound in San Fran- 
cisco. "By rail, fruit goes quick and sure; they order to- 
day, to-morrow they receive, the third day the consumer 
regales himself, and on the fourth day you pocket the cash." 

"Wheat, barley, potatoes, dairy products can hardly now 
get out of Tuolumne. We consume more than we j)roduce. 



252 HISTORY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 

By rail they will come in cheaper, and if we ever ship, will 
bring a better profit. We should sujjply ourselves and 
keep our monej^ and also sell outside to bring in money, 
unless we find some better product. Our grain is barter 
here; sent abroad, it is gold. Gold buys more goods than 
wheat, and we should pocket the gains of a cash trade." 

"Pork, made of nuts, fruit, grain, pays better than wheat 
itself." 

"Hay will always be in high demand here, so far removed 
from the plains, and its cultivation will pay better than 
that of grain. We will raise hay, and import wheat and 
barley, as by so doing we will net most cash." 

"Sugar Pine is here $40 per M, but in Stockton it com- 
mands from $60 to $80. Yellow Pine brings $20 here, and 
$25 in Stockton." 

"a railroad will increase our PRESENT BUSINESS " 

"One lumberman saws two million feet per annnm, em- 
ploj'ing thirty-five men. He will employ sixty, and make 
four millions of feet, within six months after the railroad is 
finished." 

Here, in this last quoted sentence, is where "Progress" 
made his telling point. There is as good timber east of 
Sonora, approachable by a railroad, as there is on the Cen- 
tral Pacific Railroad where it crosses the Sierra; some say, 
better timber. Any way, the supply is abundant and ex- 
cellent. A railroad penetrating the belt of pine and cedar 
will have freight by the carload for years. In such forests, 
a hundred million feet — ten thousand loads for a broad- 
gauge car, sixteen thousand six hundred loads for a nar- 
row-gauge car — would not be missed. A billion feet is 
but a fraction of the whole. Unhampered by competing 
lines, Tuolumne's railway would trau sport to Sonora, to 
the mines, to the plains, and to Stockton, lumber enough 
to fence a county or to build a city. The Assessor's books 



HISTORY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY 253 

aay that the present amount of lumber cut within the 
County's limits is five and a half million feet, and that this 
is nearly all used at home. Only a little of it gets to the 
plains. This is so beo'ause freighting by team is too 
costly; but let a railroad be the carrier, and the whole 
consumption of pine lumber in the San Joaquin Valley 
could and would be supplied from these forests; for the 
mills at Trdckee could not compete, the distance being too 
great. Puget Sound and the Redwood Belt still would 
contribute to Stockton, but in a less degree, and only where 
the rough, hard Oregon pine or the fragile redwood were 
better adapted to certain uses than the durable and easily 
worked lumber from the splendid pines of the Sierra. 

Briefly stated, it is from the expansion of her lumber 
business that Tuolumne's railroad will derive most freight. 

" Progress" proceeds: " Marble — 1200 tons, at $5 per 
ton, (purchaser quarried and shipped it at his own cost,) 
this year was a trifle, when the company says, ' we will 
put 300 hands on the quarry and 150 or 200 dressing mar- 
ble as soon as the railroad opens.' " 

Rather extravagant that, unless the demand for grave- 
stones is on th*e increase. Nevertheless, it might happen 
that when architectural graces become of account, when 
San Francisco rises from being a collection of wooden, dry- 
goods- box-like dwellings, to the dignity of a city possessing 
architectural adornments, marble will take its place as the 
best building material, and then it follows that another 
extensive industry will exist here in the extraction of that 
mineral. 

New business, in the matter of putting up new buildings, 
barrel, box, chair, door and window-sash factories; shipping 
sulphurets, slate, soapstone, more marble quarries, lime, 
charcoal, plumbago, chrome iron, manganese ore, nurse- 
ries, fruit-dryers, wine and brandy making, beef and pork 



254 HISTORY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTT. 

raising, and woolen manufacture, must result from the 
advent of a railroad. So concludes " Progress," and so 
must every one think, who ever observed the effects of a 
railroad. 

"1,000,000 cords of firewood around American Camp." 
There is not much money in shipping firewood to any 
place. The inhabitants of the region through which the 
North Pacific Coast Eailway runs (narrow gauge) attempted 
it, with a view of monopolizing the traffic; but, like all 
others, they failed lamentably. This fact will be ascer- 
tained: There is no money in shipping wood by rail. 
Converting it into charcoal may pay, but generally does 
not. It is, however, probable, that in case that blast fur- 
naces for the manufacture of iron from the excellent hema- 
tite ores found here, arise, that the consequent demand tor 
charcoal will afford a profitable way of disposing of the 
superfluous vegetable growths. 

These are the main points raised by the interesting 
writer, save certain remarks that follow as corollaries to 
the above, and these, it is to be observed, embrace nearly 
all that may be said, without detail, in favor of a railway. 
As to the negative side, it has not, as yet, been heard from. 
Decidedly, then, Tuolumne needs, wants and deserves, 
a railway. Furthermore, she can supj)ort one. And, no 
doubt, the time is near when her citizens, without trusting 
to any ridiculous scheme for joining the Pacific Ocean to 
the deserts of Nevada, will put their shoulders to the wheel 
and, by dint of rustling, raise money and build a cheap, 
narrow-gauge road from Stockton to Sonora and Columbia 
(and thence a score of miles further east to the heart of the 
timber belt), for by so connecting with Stockton they will 
gain navigable water, thus keeping free of the influence 
and tyranny of the Central Pacific people, noted regulators 
of fares and freights. 



HI8T0BT OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 255 

Sonora — Its Society and Business. 

The corporate limits of the city of Sonora are section 
thirty-six of township two north, range fourteen east, 
Mount Diablo Meridian; containing six hundred and forty 
acres of surface, with a population of about nineteen hun- 
dred, and containing the following business houses and 
other establishments: Eight or nine grocery stores, five 
dry-goods stores, two furniture stores, four drug stores, 
one paint store, two millinery establishments, two hotels, 
four or five restaurants, a score of drinking-saloons, two 
wagon-makers' shops, five blacksmith shops, one harness 
shop, one paint shop, two tailor shops, a large number of 
dress-making establishments with uncounted dress-makers, 
three barber-shops with four barbers, three tin shops, five 
shoe-maker shops, one gunsmithy, four jeweler shops, two 
bakeries, one brewery, two undertakers, one photographic 
saloon, one Alden fruit dryer in a disabled condition, one 
foundry, one cider and pickle manufactory, two flouring 
mills, two planing mills, one lumber yard, one stone and 
marble working shop, two livery stables, two newspapers 
with printing offices, one post-office, one express office, two 
butcher shops, two slaughter houses, six lawyers and one 
law student, four phj'^sicians, one dentist, several music 
teachers, two bi-ass bands, three and occasionally more 
clergymen, four churches, three Sunday schools, one public 
hall rather dilapidated, one skating rink now unused, one 
public school in excellent condition, taught by four teachers, 
two draymen, and two bootblacks. 

Of such is the town of Sonora, and to these, as well as 
to the several gold mines within her limits, does she owe 
her continued existence and prosperity. Although the 
number of business houses has suffered a slight diminution, 
yet the value of trade has increased and the population 



256 HI3T0EY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 

risen perceptibly -within the last few years. The very dull 
times succeeding the war having passed, and the natural 
resources, agricultural and mineral, having come to be 
properly appreciated, a new era of comparative prosperity 
would seem to dawn upon the town and upon the county 
at large. Unquestionably, immense resources for the sup- 
port of a happy and prosperous population exist within 
these foothills; and doubtless the work of succeeding de- 
cades will be to ascertain the character of these sources of 
wealth and adapt them to their proper uses. 

To the tourist or the curiosity seeker of the present day 
Sonera, aside from its historical associations, rich beyond 
compare, presents no great attraction ; but to the resident of 
many years, or to the transient guest who measures his stay 
by a few months, no town or city endows one with more 
pleasant recollections, nor leaves more fragrant memories. 
From a merely business point of view other places and 
other scenes furnish perhaps better inducements to the in- 
dustrious single man, or to the family which seeks merely 
the material prosperity of years, and the hajipiness which 
com6S"Wit^the contemplation of worldly increase; but to 
those who look for a clime beneficent and congenial, the 
seeker for a modest competence, and blessed with health 
and sanctified by the graces of rural life, away from the 
toils, the temptations and the disappointments of the busy 
marts of the outer world, no land within mortal ken, no 
village however blessed, can bestow higher good than 
Tuolumne's capital. A town of modest pretensions, with- 
out classical elegance, without the airs and graces, the sum 
of modern improvements, Sonora yet unboastfullj bears a 
crown of quiet refinement, yet breathes the charming in- 
cense of delicious repose, winning the regard alike of the 
world-sated traveller and the rural denizen. 

Here have drifted the foreigner and the native born; the 
child of the tropics and the calmer sons and daughters of 



HISTORY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 257 

the temperate zone. Each State in the Union, and every 
clime known to civilized man throughout the world, have 
their representatives in this favored spot. Cosmopolitan in 
taste and in appearance, the town and with it the county 
offers as before an agreeable asylum where no one however 
remote be the place of his nativity, need deem himself 
alone. 

Made up of such heterogeneous elements, such a variety 
of the families and races of men, it were no wonder that 
their intercourse proved the reverse of peaceful and am- 
icable; not so, however, rather does it result that the very 
difference of race, proves a cause of well-being. There 
are no preponderating elements, no race or family pre- 
dominating. 

Since the wild, careless days of the Argonauts have 
passed into history and the great acts of the past linger 
only in the memories of the fast dwindling band of actors 
in those stirring times — times when religion svas but as an 
idle word and religious observances found few to obey their 
rites — with the dawn and progress of the new time, new 
men, new j)ursuits, new habits, this land has taken on with 
its calmer and perhajDs better ways, a holier aspect. Church 
edifices have risen, from whence the chimes of the bell 
invite all within the hearing of its tuneful voice to praise 
the Giver of all good, in his consecrated house. And the 
Sabbath school sends forth its pujpils richer by the pious 
lessons of good will and righteousness, to lay deeper the 
foundations of loyalty to the Redeemer and truth and 
justice towards men. 

Schools flourish, and the law is admiuistered equably. 
By the one the youth become freighted with that which 
shall make their lives useful, and by the other their lives 
are protected from the harmful in such degree as may be. 
Earnest and suecessful teachers whose existence is given up 



3158 HISTORY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 

to the undivided pursuit of instructing the tender mind, 
labor zealously to implant the seeds of the knowledge 
which have their sure result . The bar deserves well its 
past and present honors. Its memories will not shortly fade. 

Not one only, nor two professions, or pursuits, are most 
highly favored. The earnest laborer, were his toils before 
the printing case, the bed of disease, at the knotty problems 
of legal uncertainties, in the pulpit, or in the domain of 
politics, literature or what not, in some way or in some 
guise, has earned for himself a name and so much of fame 
and this world's goods, as his deserts have entitled him to. 
Eminence has been the lot and the reward of many of 
Tuolumne's sons; and the common lot of humanity here 
seems to be not less, but rather more elevated than in other 
lands. Not many of wealth are here, nor do many languish 
in deep poverty. The fruits of the earth are the common 
property of whoever will put forth his hand ; but to attain 
wealth would seem a toil of years. The golden mean, the 
midway lot between riches and jaoverty, holds the most. 
All of life's necessaries without life's elegancies, or in short 
the state that poets celebrate, and that man's best reason 
advocates, could seem to belong to this people. 

With enough of comforts to content and to elevate, 
and without the luxuries to enervate, the active mind has 
become cultured, while the physical self, retaining its 
wonted powers, does not give over the life work which 
alone qualifies man or woman for a happy existence. Gath- 
ering refinements about themselves, many families of the 
later times furnish examples of true culture and morality 
which, without seeking acknowledgment, find only equals, 
certainly no superiors, in the celebrated abodes of art and 
polished grace. Born and bred in such a community, the 
rising generation, as regards intelligence, aptness and good 
morals, bids fair to excel in the amenities of life their pre- 



mSTORY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 259 

decessors. who, doubtless, will be most pleased should it 
be so. 

In examining into the tangible evidences of refinement 
and mental excellence, the critic inquires later concerning 
literary powers and taste. He learns that two local news- 
papers are supported in the one county, and, to a great ex- 
tent, by the one town of Sonora. Furthermore, that liter- 
ary socities, two in number, exist, and that these are well 
attended by the intelligent and interested of both sexes, 
and of all ages, who do not hesitate at any labor which the 
course of exercises may cause to fall to their share. In 
times past, various alert writers have owned Tuolumne as 
their home, and the influence of these has no doubt done, 
and will continue to do, much good in molding the youth- 
ful mind to habits of reflection and expression. It may be 
confidently expected that the brains and imagination of 
yet to be celebrated writers may be nurtured here. 

Another evidence of refinement may be seen in the 
extraordinary devotion to music of a large share of the 
population. Instrumental and vocal, brass bands and 
choral societies — all have their devotees, and all absorb 
the attention of the populace. 

It were easy to predict the future of a land like this, 
inhabited by such people; but now, having told the story 
of what has been, and given utterance to these few words 
respecting the present, the author would fain take leave of 
the subject of Tuolumne's history, feeling that additional 
time would, perhaps, have enabled him to do the subject 
more justice, but still hoping that his work will meet the 
commendation of those for whom it is prepared, and 
believing that its accuracy will, in every point, remain 
unshaken, he would respectfully ask the thoughtful con- 
sideration of all to whom the topic may bear interest. 

The task has been a pleasant one. Surrounded by active 



260 HISTORY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 

and intelligent minds, to many of whom the progress of 
the affairs herein narrated has been as an open book; aided 
by the suggestions and forwarded by the recollections of 
thoughtful men, it has been a pleasure to arrange and com- 
pile the matter presented. Circumstances have favored 
the progress of the work; files of newspapers have been 
brought from their almost forgotten repositories, and mem- 
ories have unloaded their stores of anecdote. Situated 
for the time in the midst of the people whose history he 
would narrate, the author has, by association, come to an 
absorbing interest in their past and present, while he con- 
fesses to a high regard for the charming hospitality that 
has made the months pass swiftly and pleasantly. 

The old must forever give place to the new. New tasks 
succeed old labors, and the light of brighter days shines 
always on the future of men. So, with a feeling of relief 
from the old task, the writer lays down his pen, while 
breathing a wish for Tuolumne and her people that the 
brightness and prosperity of future times may be what 
merit deserves and what industry and energy win. 



i^^^W^^'" 



^-^l-S^^^-l--* 7— 



CHIjONOLOGY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 



1849. 
May — 9^ Boyd murdered by Atkins, at Big Bar, on Sulli- 
van's^Creek. On trial before Alcalde Frazier, 
the murderer was fined $500, and ordered to 
leave the district. 
Sonora's town organization effected. 
Fire in Sonora. Loss, $30,000 to $50,000. 



Nov. 


7. 


Nov. 


14, 


1850. 


June 


1. 


June 


1. 


June 28. 



The foreign miners' tax of $20 per month went 

into operation. 
First term of Court of Sessions held in Sonora 
Ford, a native of Massachusetts, murdered and 

robbed at his tavern, near Keeler's Ferry. 
July 4. The Sonora Herald made its first appearance 

J. White and J. G. Marvin, editors. 
July 15. First sitting of the District Court in Sonora. C. 

M. Creaner, Judge; W. H. Ford, Clerk. 
July 23. George Marshall shot, in self-defense, by Mc- 

Elroy, at Sonora. 
San. 27. S. R. Elmendorff shot and killed at Hawkins 

Bar, by J. W. Seaman, for an assau'*- on tho 

latter' s wife. 
Nov. 9. E. L. Christman and Dr. L. C. Gunn became 

associate editors of the Sonora Herald. 



264 



HISTORY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 



1851. 
Jan. 25. 



Aug. 25. 



Elander Boggs, from Baltimore, murdered by 
Bowen, at Curtisville, by shooting. The 
murderer was immediately hanged by the ex- 
asperated bystanders. 

Tindal Newby, aged 22, native of New York, 
murdered by A. J. Fuller, at Shaw's Flat, in 
consequence of a quarrel concerning house- 
hold articles. Fuller was tried and sentenced 
to nine months' imprisonment and a fine of 



Feb. 1. 
March 6. 



March 13 
April 18. 

April 28. 

May 3. 
May 23. 
May 26. 



Kelly was murdered at Yorktown. 

William Anderson, aged 25, from Tennessee, 
died from the effects of a gunshot wound re- 
ceived in a fight with William Mulligan, who 
escaped arrest. 
The Holden Garden riot. One man — Leven 
Davis — killed and four wounded, one of whom, 
George Dangley by name, died a week later. 

George Palmer, a miner, in Sonora, shot and 
killed in cold blood by Wilson, alias Thorn- 
ley, who broke jail, but was recaptured in Los 
Angeles, tried and acquitted. 

William Bowen, aged 22, from Rhode Island, 
stabbed to death by Mexicans, in a fandango 
house in Sonora. No arrests. 
Dr. L. C. Gunn became sole editor and proprietor 
of the Sonora Herald. 

O. A. Byam, from Maine, killed by a cave, near 
Columbia. 

The Common Council of Sonora held their first 
meeting. 



HISTORY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 



265 



June 10. 



June 18. 



June 24. 
June 28. 



July 27. 



Oct. 11. 

Oct. 24. 
Dec. 4. 



Dec. 9. 

1852. 
Feb. — . 



Captain George W. Snow murdered at Dragoon 
Gulch, by three Mexicans, for purposes of 
robbery. Antonio Cruz and Patricio Janori, 
two of the assassins, were captured, tried in 
Shaw's Flat by a "People's Court," and 
hanged. 

Marshal McFarlane shot and killed a Mexican, 
who resisted arrest and mortally wounded an- 
other. Sonora. 

Corner-stone of Masonic Hall laid in Sonora. 

David (or James) Hill hanged in Sonora by a 
mob, for outrages committed at Campo Seco 
and elsewhere. 
William Ford, of New York, killed by E. P. 
Cardwell, for an unprovoked assault. At the 
same time and place, Augustus Kaufmann was 
shot and killed by Officer Evans, while trying 
to evade arrest. Both Cardwell and Evans 
were honorably' discharged. Sonora. 
Fire in Tuttletown. Store of George Graham 

burned. Loss, $5,000. 
The Colombia Star first appeared. 

Jose Corrales sentenced to death by Judge Crea- 
ner, for horse-stealing. Executed January 7, 
1852. 

The Common Council abolished bull and bear 
fisfhtinof in Sonora. 



Thomas H. Dexter and Captain Daniels mur- 
dered and robbed at Spanish Bar. 
March 11. Wilson, Hilliard and Callahan drowned in the 
Stanislaus, while attempting to ci'oss during 
hio"h water. 



266 HISTORY OP TUOLUMNE COUNTT. 

May 22. W. Murray and J. O'Sullivan became editors and 
proprietors of the Sonora Herald. 

June 18. Great fire in Sonora. The whole city burned. 
Loss, probably a million of dollars. 

July. 7. Roney shot dead by Edward May, in self-de- 
fense, at Columbia. 

July 7.'.^ First meeting of the Board of Supervisors of 
Tuolumne County. 

July 9. Samuel Malcolmson found dead at Sullivan's 
Creek. Murdered, and probably robbed. 

July 12. Philip Flanders killed at Gold Si^rings by a cave. 

July 14. John Amberson killed at Shaw's Flat by a cave. 

Sept. 21. Dr. McGregor, a practicing physician of Sonora , 
was murdered by stabbing, by parties un- 
known. 

Nov. — . Col. Falconer established the Columbia Gazette. 

Nov. 10. Gidding, a German, murdered and robbed near 
Campo Seco by two Chinamen. 

1853. 

Jan. 24. Board of Supervisors advertise for bids for the 
erection of a Court House. Awarded to Bell 
and McBirnie for $6,500. 

Jan. 26. Stanley, a farmer, murdered at Curtis Creek by 
parties unknown. 

Feb. 10. William Jeffreys, engineer at Bennet & Brazee's 
saw milly on Wood Creek, was killed by be- 
coming entangled in the machinery. 

Mar. — . Samuel E. Slater, a rancher on Curtis Creek, 
was found, murdered by parties unknown. 

Apr. 9. Jonathan Long, killed by the accidental dis- 
charge of his pistol, Wood's Diggings. 

July 7. Simson B. Merril, from Maine, killed by Indians, 
in the mountains, 20 miles east of Sonora. 



HISTORY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 267 

Aug. 6. Dr. L. C. Gunn, again became proprietor and 
editor of the Sonora Herald 

Sept. 5. Adams & Go's express box, containing $25,000, 
was stolen from the stage about one mile from 
Sonora. Reward of $10,000 offered for the 
arrest of the robbers and return of the gold. 

Sept. 5. James D. Sawyer, found murdered at Moccasin 
Creek. 

Sept. 21. Court House completed and occupied. 

Oct. . 1. Leipe, a Frenchman, was murdered by parties 
unknown, at Curtis Creek. 

Oct. 4. Great fire in Sonora. Loss $300,000. E. B. 
Lundy was burned to death. 

Oct. 8. Robert Bruce stabbed and killed a boy of Span- 
ish and negro descent, in Sonora. For this 
he suffered death Dec. 8, 1854. 

Nov. 1. Fire in Sonora. Loss $50,000. 

Nov. — . Col. Falconer retired from the Columbia Gazette. 

Nov. 19. Capt. John Parrot, of Columbia, murdered by 
Peter Nicholas. After a narrow escape from 
lynching, the murderer was tried and found 
guilt}'^ of murder in the first degree, and 
sentenced to death; but the sentence was 
finally commuted to seven years imprisonment. 

Dec. 20. Austin S. Bannister, native of Tenn., killed in 
self-defense by T. Carringlon, near Illinois 
House. 
1854. 

Jany. 10. James G. Glidden, a miner from Maine, killed 
by a cave, near Springfield. 

Jany. 13. Peter Duer committed suicide at Tuttletown. 

Feb. 22. Horace Bull, Esq. , a prominent lawyer of So- 
nora, committed suicide by shooting. 

Mar. 24. Leander Quint became Judge of the Court of 
Sessions. 



268 HISTOKT OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 

Apr. 1. A gold specimen valued at $4,800 founci at Col- 
umbia. 

Apr. 11. An unknowii man killed at Albany Flat by Mr. 
Houghton in defence of his wife's honor 

Apr. 15. An Irishman, name unknown, killed by a cave 
at Shaw's Flat. 

Apr. 22. O'Sullivan & Murray became proprietors of the 
Sonora Herald. 

May 13. Benoit Marcel killed Seron, a Chilian, in a 
quarrel, at Camp Accommodation. He was 
acquitted on the ground of self-defense. 

May — . The Columbia Clipper made its first appearance. 
Heckendorn & Gist, proprietors. 

June 8. Stringer, proprietor of the " Cold Spring 
Ranco," murdered near Jamestown. Keyes, 
suspected of the deed, was tried and ac- 
quitted. 

June 10. Stanislaus County, now set apart from Tuol- 
umne, held its first election. 

June 18. Henry L. Mahon, killed in a drunken quarrel, 
in Columbia, by unknown assailants. 

June 19. China woman found murdered near Shaw's 
Flat. Supposed to have been the victim of 
her countrymen. 

June 20. Carrick, Irish, killed at Shaw's Flat, by falling 
from a tree. 

June 29. Unknown man, killed at Springfield, by a cave 
in a mine. 

July 3. Fire in Sonora, twelve buildings burned, and a 
Mexican perished in the flames. 

July 10. Great fire in Columbia. Loss $500,000. 

Aug. 1. John Davis, aged 60, occupation shepherd, 
found murdered at Su^ar Pine. 



HISTORY 05 TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 269 

Aug. 2. Bruce and Hayes broke jail at Sonora. Bruce 

was severely wounded by pursuers and both 

were re-captured. 
Aug. 7. Jean Snyder, killed by a cave, at Texas Flat. 
Aug. 22. Chileno murdered in bed at Poverty Hill. 
Aug. 29. Unknown man found murdered at Abbey's 

Ferry. 
Sept. 20. Poverty Hill destroyed by fire. ^ 

Oct. — . Woman shot and mortally wounded by a party 

of Chilenos at Pine Log. 
Oct 2. Lyons, Hazleton and Duffield engaged in a 

bloody affray at Sonora. Lyons arrested for 

the murder of a Frenchman, but acquitted 

June 24, 1855. 
Oct. 18. Capt. Eobt. Holly, of Brown's Flat, killed at 

Angel's Camp, Calaveras County. 
Oct. 25. Danforth Grordon, killed by Isaac Williams, at 

Hawkins' Bar. 
Nov. 3. Thos. Allen, killed by Wm. Knox, at Columbia, 

K. was sentenced to serve six months in State 

Prison. 
Nov. 14. Kobinson, owner of a saw-mill near Springfield, 

shot and killed by Vaughn in a dispute about 

a water-right. Vaughn was discharged from 

custody. 
Nov. 14. Unknown Mexican killed by J. M. Escobar, at 

Salvador. 
Nov. 20. Sam. Poole killed at Curfcisville, by McCarthy, 

in a quarrel about the demi-monde. Mc- 
Carthy sent to State Prison for two years. 
Nov. 30. Chas. Sprague, aged 50, native of Maine, killed 

by a cave at Gold Hill. 
Dec. 4. Sentence of Thos. Crooks, who was to have 

been hanged Dec. 8, commuted to 10 years 

imprisonment. 



270 HISTORY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 

Dec. 8. Bruce hanged at Sonora for a murder com- 
mitted in 1853. 

Fire in Columbia; French bakery burned. 

William Raney, keeper of a dance house in 
Columbia, murdered by unknown assassins. 



Dec. 


20. 


Dec. 


24. 


1855. 


Jan. 


16. 



Martin Hennessey, a vagrant, shot and killed by 

officer Carder, in Columbia. 
Feb. 9. Chinaman shot and killed in Jacksonville by the 

Tax Collector, while resisting that officer. 
Feb. 15. Wm. Lyons and Samuel Johns seriously injured 

by the explosion of a cannon at Springfield. 
Feb. 18. New Presbyterian church dedicated at Sonora 

by Rev. Dr. Scott, of San Francisco. 
Feb. 24. Suspension of Page, Bacon & Co. and A-dams 

&Co. 
Mar. 5. Greenough and D. Hurrey drowned at French 

Bar, in the Tuolumne river. 
Mar. 7. John Thomas, aged 27, drowned at Pine Log. 
Mar. 7. Miners' strike against the Tuolumne Water Co. 
Mar. 9. Failey shot by Ba'xter at Jamestown; drink the 

cause. 
Mar. 10. Hanks, storekeeper at Jacksonville, suicided. 
Mar. 17. The Talbot Flour Mills., on the Tuolumne river, 

carried away by a flood; loss $30,000. 
Mar. 24. Joseph Riley shot dead by Mc. O'Brien at 

Cherokee. 
Apr. 2. Vote taken on the proposed removal of the 

county-seat from Sonora to Jamestown; meas- 
ure defeated by an immense majority. 
Apr. 5. Peabody killed at Santiago Hill by a cave; age 

25; native of Canada. 
May 3. E. Cooligan, Irish, drowned at Don Pedro's Bar. 



HISTORY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 271 

May 5. John Sheldon, police officer, stabbed to death by- 
Mexicans; Escobar and Sebada were con- 
victed of this murder and hanged. 

May 11. Wm. Franklin, aged 27, native of New York, 
drowned at Byrnes' Ferry. 

May 15. Elliott Higgins, a miner, drowned in a prospect 
hole at Yankee Hill. 

June 21. Swiers, a storekeeper, at Tuttletown, murdered 
and robbed by Mexicans. 

July 7. Judge Brunton, of Yorktown, attacked in his 
house and robbed of $12,000. 

July 10. Kittering charged Justice Worth, of Algerine, 
with being concerned in the Brunton robbery, 
whereupon the latter shot him dead; on trial 
Worth was acquitted. 

July 13. Chas. Cardinell, of Columbia, shot by Ingersoll 
for resisting arrest; act jDronounced justifiable. 

July 28. Uriah M. Isgrigg killed by Keuben Bessy in a 
quarrel, at Columbia; B. was found guilty of 
manslaughter and sentenced to two years 
imprisonment. 

Sept. 5, John Howell drowned at Abbey's Ferry. 

Oct. 6. Fire in Jamestown; loss $75,000. 

Oct. 10. Murder of J. H. Smith and lynching of the 
murderer, J. S. Barclay, in Columbia. 

Sept. 25. Dr£>-ke, a miuer of Shaw's Flat, severely 
wounded by E. T. Hunter in the streets of 
Sonora. 

Nov. 10. Columbia Gazette and Southern Mines Advertiser 
first appeared, semi- weekly; Duchow & Caz- 
neau, editors and proprietors. 

Dec. — . Division of the county agitated in Columbia, 
which was to be the seat of the new county. 



272 HISTORY OF TDOLUMNE COUNTY. 

1856. 

Jan. — . Thos. L. Jones sacceeded Leander Quint as 
County Judge. 

Apr. 14. Charles Jarvis killed by Patrick Garhety, at 
Columbia. 

Apr. 30. Charles Lewis, aged 30, suicided at Sonora by 
taking morphine. 

June 21. The Weekly Columbian first appeared, Oliver & 
"Wilson, proprietors. 

July 7. The Daily Sonora Herald first appeared. 

Aug. 13. Petition of citizens of Columbia for incorpora- 
tion granted. 

Aug. 18. Two men, names unknown, killed in Matelot 
gulch by a cave. 

Sept. 22. Chileno killed by an Indian at Springfield, in a 
gambling quarrel. 

Sept. 29. Frenchman accidentally shot at Pine Log, 

Sept. 30. A. H. Woodward and Mattison burned to death 
in the Belvidere House, near Chinese Camp. 

Oct. 18. Bond, attacked by Edward McCauley and An- 
drew J. Carr, killed the latter, but was slain 
by McCauley, who was hanged in Sonora 
Dec. 11, 1855, for the offence. The tragedy 
occurred at Shaw's Flat. 

Oct. 25. War among the Chinese at Rock River Ranch — 
four of them killed. 

Nov. 15. John McKenny killed by a blast at Rock Gulch. 

1857. 

Feb. 2] . Blakesley murdered by Lyons and Poer, near 
Sonora. The murderers were hanged Dec. 
11, 1857. 

Mar. — . Five murder cases before the District Court. 



HISTORY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY 273 

May 21 Sonora Literary and Scientific Institution organ- 
ized; Dr. Snell, Chairman. 
June 8. Contract let to B. Stout for building County 

Jail. Price, $13,300. 
June 19. Mexican dies at Martinez from the effects of a 

cave in a mine. 
June 20. Tuolumne Courier's first appearance, Columbia, 

W. A. and J. C. Dachow, and J. B. Urmy 

editors and proprietors. 
June 25. Yaney wounded by McCarthy, in Sonora, in a 

quarrel concerning business matters. 
June 26. William Davis hanged at Sonora for the murder 

of a Chinaman in 1855. 
June — . Henry M. Funke shot by Mills. 
July 4. Two men engaged in a fight at Peoria Flat, and 

were both killed. 
July 26. Gomez shot dead by Alviso, from jealousy, at 

Columbia. The survivor was discharged from 

custody. 
Aug. 21. Meadows, while robbing a flume at Shaw's Flat, 

shot dead by Nettles. 
Aug. 25. Great fire in Columbia. Loss over $500,000. 

H. N. Brown, Dennis Driscoll, J. M. B. 

Crooks, William Toomey and Capt. Rudolph 

killed by falling walls. 
Sept. 8. Kiefer, a German, killed by a falling rock in 

in a claim at Gold Hill. 
Sept. 13. John Rule, killed in Columbia by a runaway 

horse to which he was tied. 
Sept. 14. William H. Cowan, killed by a fall at Pine 

Log. 
Sept. 22. New Jail at Sonora completed and accepted. 
Oct. 20. James Kelly, aged 35, killed by a cave at Ben- 

sonville. 



274: HISTORY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 

Oct. 21. William T. Pinney, Public Administrator of 
Tuolumne County, committed suicide in 
Stockton. 

Nov. 11. Fire in Sonora. Sheriff Stuart signalized him- 
self by rescuing a child from the flames at 
the risk of his own life. 

Nov. 20. E. C. Payne acquitted of the murder of Vaughn. 

Dec. 11. Lyons, Poer and McCauley, hanged at Sonora. 

Dec. — . William Diver drowned in a prospect hole at 
Campbell's Half Way House. 

Dec. 12. J. S. Smiley killed by Irish Tommy in a drunken 
row at Sonora. 
1858. 

Jan. 5. Morris murdered by William Pleasant in Sonora ; 
both colored. 

Feb. 10. R. C. Hughes, English, age 50, committed sui- 
cide, in the County Jail at Sonora, by taking 
strychnine. 

Feb. — . Perley killed by Indians in the mountains east 
of Sonora. 

Mar. 11. Richard Bloome killed by a cave on Wood's 
Creek. 

Mar. 12. E. Linoberg died of apoplexy, Sonora. 

Mar. — . John Sedgwick wounded by Geo. Kirk while 
making an arrest . For this offence Kirk was 
sentenced to State Prison for five years. 

Mar 27. Henry Stankens and M. Reinder killed by a 
cave at Portuguese Gulch. 

May 3 . A son of Henry McGlory, aged 4 years, drowned 
at Gold Springs. 

May 8. Daniel Dougherty killed by a cave at Benson- 
ville . 

May 17. Cum Sow, Chinaman, killed in Columbia; proba- 
bly by white men. 



HISTORY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 275 

May 22. George Tim, German, committed suicide in Co- 
lumbia, with a pistol. 
May 22, G. B. Plummer, Albert Gleason, Joseph Osborne, 
John Simcox and John Carlyon, killed in a 
tunnel at Whimtown by an irruption of water. 
June 15. Marshall, an ex-convict, killed in an attempt to 

rob a bank, at Shaw's Flat. 
June 17. Hilaire Boirard, Sardinian, aged 40, killed by a 

cave at Duck Bar. 
Aug. 4. Leonard Shoeck and Abraham DeLoew killed 
at Grand Bar, by two Frenchmen, brothers, 
in a mining difficulty. The murderers fled, 
and being pursued by a party, fired upon 
them from ambush, killing Robert G. Warren 
and wounding two others, themselves finally 
evading arrest. 
Fire in the Tigre, Sonora. Damage from $40,- 

000 to $50,000. 
Cabott, killed by Olliphan, at the Landsdale 
Sawmill. On trial Olliphan was found not 
guilty. 
$8,000 nugget found in Columbia, by Strain. 
John Kenn, killed by a cave, near Columbia. 
Cassiday killed by Dunn, at Cherokee. 
Fire in Jamestown. Loss $16,750. 
Murder of Officer McDonald, in Columbia. 
Murder of Constable John Leary, in Columbia. 



Jan. 10. Miller's Soap Factory burned in Sonora. Loss 

$4,000. 
J an. 11. T. D. Bruce killed by Capt. Buck, at Tuttle- 

town. Justifiable homicide. 
23. Marion Shirley, a horse jockey, murdered by 

Wm. C. Davis. Tha slayer was acquitted. 



Aug. 


7. 


Aug. 


— . 


Sept. 





Sept. 


13. 


Oct. 


2. 


Oct. 


6. 


Nov. 


26. 


Nov. 


30. 



276 HISTORY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 

April 27. Virgin &. Co., at Columbia, found a mass of 

gold of the value of $7,000. 
May — . Irishman killed at Columbia by the fall of a 

bowlder. 

June — . Sonora Herald suspended publication. 

June 22. Thomas Murnan, aged 40, committed suicide at 

Kincaid's Flat. 
July 25. William O'Brien, Irish, killed at Columbia by a 
cave. 
Indian sluice-robber shot, at Bensonville. 
James McDonald died from effects of a shot fired 
by one Gardner, a gambler. Gardner re- 
leased from custody. 
Bayard Taylor lectured in Sonora. 
David N. Hunt, of Big Oak Flat, killed in an 

arastra. 
A Frenchman murdered another, at Texas Flat. 
George W. Chase killed by Deputy Sheriff Hil- 
dreth, in Columbia, in the discharge of his 
duty. He was exonerated. 
Dec. 18. Marcellus Butler, aged 28, pawnbroker, mur- 
dered by unknown assassins, at Chinese 
Camp. 
Dec. 27. Samuel White, aged 30, murdered at Ward's 

Ferry, by person or persons unknown. 
Dec. 27. Augustus Stevens, aged 27, native of Maine, 
killed near Columbia, by a cave. 

1860. 
Jan. 3. Rice killed at^Cherokee, in a drunken row. 
Jan. 9. Fire at corner of Bi'oadway and State streets 
Columbia. Loss $1,200. 



Aug. 


10. 


Oct. 


3. 


Oct. 


8. 


Oct. 


11. 


Nov. 


14 


Nov. 


21, 



HISTORY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 277 

Jan. — . Alden Carver shot and killed by "W. Cdstello, at 
Gold Springs, in a quarrel about mining prop- 
erty. Costello was convicted of murder in 
the first degree and sentenced to be hanged, 
but obtaining a new trial was declared not 
guilty. 

Jan. 26. Isaac S. Dore, aged 17, native of Maine, was 
killed near Columbia, by a blast. 

Feb. 20. Jo. Conner killed in a fight at Poverty Hill. 

Feb. — . White, aged 40, from Vermont, killed by a cave 
at Algerine. 

April 11. Sailor Jack killed by James Dayton, in Sonora. 

April 16. Kelly and another drowned at Jacksonville. 

April — . Campbell suicided at Cherokee with a rifle. 
Cause unknown. 

April 20. Conniff, aged 29, New York, stabbed to death 
by George Colfelt alias Bob York, at Tuttle- 
town. On trial Coffelt was sentenced to ten 
years confinement. 

May — . Emile Leon, alias "Yankee," shot and killed by 
Constable Swilling. Verdict, justifiable 
homicide. 

May 7. The Big Oak Flat stage robbed. Wells, Fargo 
& Co. lost $650. 

May 10. Big Oak Flat incorporated. 

June 15. John McGlinchy killed by a Mexican in a gam- 
bling row. Weapon, a pistol. 

Aug. 2. Fire in the Tigre, Sonora. Loss $4,000 to $6,000. 

Aug. 3. Dennis Callahan killed by falling into a shaft 
at Columbia 

Aug. §. James Lownds, aged 50, Irish, committed suicide 
by taking arsenic. 

Aug. 13. Fire in Sonora. Losses by Messrs. Bush,' 
Eulofson, Sewell, and Freund, $8,000. 



278 HISTORY OP TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 

Aug. 16. John Killen, of Gold Springs, killed by the 
fall of a tree. 

Aug. 16. Camille Caimus, French, aged 45, killed by 
"Victor," also French. 

Aug. 23. A sluice-robber, name unknown, shot dead by 
Peter Hanson, near Sonora. 

Oct. 27. Eobert Dickey, aged 42, married, suicided at 
Poverty Gulch, Cause, family troubles. 

Nov. 7. Springfield incorporated. 

Nov. 10. Stephen Smith killed by his brother Daniel, 
because of suspected intimacy with the lat- 
ter' s wife. 

Dec. 2. Judge Thomas C. Brunton, aged 63, native of 
Massachusetts, married and having a family, 
was murdered and robbed, near Sonora. 

Dec. 17. Alexander Dunlap, aged 45, committed suicide 
with strychnine, at Barry's Halfway House. 

1861. 

Jan. 4. J. C. Heath, aged 60, suicided with laudanum, 
Sonora . 

Jan. — . County debt was $166,000. 

Jan. 10. Death of Waterman from injuries received in the 
Grizzly Mine. 

Jan. 12. S. R. Troby killed in his claim near Columbia 
by accident. 

Mar. 13. Capt. Eben Runnels killed by an Italian, Fran- 
cisco Lombardo alias Degrei, near Sonora. 

Mar. 18, James Foley, aged 32, killed by a cave at Co- 
lumbia. 

Mar. 22. Four Chinamen hung in the jail-yard at Sonora 
for the murder of another at Big Oak Flat. 

Mar. 27. William Turner alias Red Bill suicided at Tuttle- 
town by shooting. 



HISTORY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 279 

Mar. 'iT. L. T. Baxter murdered by John Kinney at tlie 

Placer Hotel, Sonora. K. was found not 

guilty. 
Mar. — . Freshet throughout the county. Great damage 

to claims, etc. 
April 15. Hugh Canovan, an-ed 38, stabbed to death in 

Columbia by B. F, Ryder, who escaped con. 

viction. 
April 30. Orrin Waltze run over and killed by a team at, 

Jamestown. - 
May — . Body of Reuben Anderson, aged 35, native of 

Tennessee, found in Stanislaus river. 
June 24. Daughter of D. J. Collins drowned in Wood 

Creek Flume, Sonora. 
July 4. Gen. Shields, U.S.A., delivered Fourth of July 

address in Columbia. 
July 6. Jacob R. Giddis, Agent of the Tuolumne County 

Water Company, found murdered at reservoir 

near Strawberry. 
July 26. Sloan stabbed to death in Columbia. 
July 27. Fire in Columbia. Loss $26,000. 
Aug. 6. Great Fire in Sonora. Loss $100,000. 
Sept 5. Udo Von Keller run over and killed in Co- 
lumbia. 
Oct. 2. Mexican teamsters murdered in the mountains 

45 miles east of Sonora. 
Oct. 26. Patrick Farley, a saloon-keeper at Shaw's Flat, 

murdered by Pat. McCann and others. 

1862. 

Jan. 11. Geo. E. Deering, of Jacksonville, drowned at 
Campbell's Flat. 

Jan. — . Carroll murdered by Smith and Tinder. 



280 HISTORY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 

Jan. — . San Francisco newspapers sold in Sonora at a 

dollar per coj)y, owing to the difficulty of 

transit. 
Jan. 24. Heavy fall of snow in Sonora. 
Mar. 8. Petronilla Belador killed by other Mexicans at 

Algerine. 
Mar. 12. Donnelly stabbed, by Tidford, died at Big Oak 

Flat. 
Mar. 15. Theater building commenced, next to the U. S. 

Hotel, in Sonora. 
Mar. 27. John Davis, a miner and capitalist of Sonora, 

arrested for the murder of a man in Yolo 

county, 12 years previous. 
Mar. — . Copper excitement at Crimea House; miles of 

country staked off. 
Apr. 2. Pedro Martinez killed by falling into a mining 

shaft, in Sonora. 
May 26. Chinaman stabbed and killed at Chinese Camp 

b^' a fellow-countr^^man, who was committed 

to jail and there hung himself. 
Aug. 9. Andrew Hempfield caved upon and killed at Chi- 
nese Camp; deceased was a native of Ireland, 

aged about 31 years. 
Oct. — . Alex. F. Piatt committed suicide. 
Oct. 21. Thomas Qiiinn, Irish, aged 28, killed in a claim 

on Mormon creek. 
Oct. 27. Wm. Gray injured by a cave in the Louisiana 

tunnel, died in the Hospital. 
Nov. 11. McAllister murdered by Isaac Dann at Jefferson- 

ville, in a dispute about water rights; Dann 
• was found not guilty. 
Dec. 27. John Davis, who was arrested in Sonora, taken 

to Yolo county and tried for murder, and ac- 
quitted, having returned to Sonora, was 

killed by D. O. McCarthy. 



-:iTFTl^l}pv, 




^^^-7, 




•2/ 




HISTORY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 281 

1863. 

Jan. 27. Thomas "Walsh, aged 30, killed in a claim on 

Mormon creek by a cave. 
Feb. 8. Shooting aifray by Italian miners at Moccasin 

creek; two men killed and five wounded. 
Mar. 1. Ando, a Frenchman, hanged himself at Hos_ 

mer's ranch. 

Mar. 1. Two Chinamen murdered by Mexican robbers at 

Paris Bar, on the Tuolumne. 

Fire in Jamestown. Property of McPhillips 

and others, to the value of $10,000, destroyed. 

Daniel Miller suicided at the Rock River ranch. 

Dominique, a Frenchman, stabbed and killed at 

Pine Log. 
Great Republican mass-meeting at Sonora, ad- 
dressed by F. M. Pixley and others. 
Charles J. Alderlej' and Nathan H. Pike mur- 
dered at Garrote by parties unknown. 
Oct. 20. Big Oak Flat nearly destroyed by fire; loss about 
$50,000. 
, Nov. — . Robert Ferral, Esq., retired from the editorial 
charge of the Democrat. 
Nov. 30. Frangois Tavais, of French nativity, committed 
suicide with a shotgun, at Moccasin creek, 
during an attack of delirium tremens. 
Dec. — . E. F. Hunter, formerly cf Sonora, acquitted of 
a charge of murdering a man in Sacramento, 
after change of venue to Jack?on, Amador 
County. 
Dec. 26. Two Mexicans, Cosme Nunez and Luis Leiva, 
hanged by a mob. 
1864. 
Feb. 22. Mortimer J. Smith, aged 50, occupation journal- 
ist, a former resident of Tuolumne, died sud- 
denly in Sacramento. 



Jnne 26. 


June 27. 


July 


8. 


Aug. 


29. 


Sept. 


13, 



282 HISTORY or tuolumne couktt. 

Apr. 5. Oissian E. Dodge, the celebrated vocalist, sang 
in Sonora. 

Apr. — . Numerous outrages on Chinamen by Indians and 
Mexicans were reported at this time. At the 
Lacaire ranch a Chinaman was murdered, and 
Pedro Ybarra and Kamon Velasquez were 
held for the crime, and the latter sentenced 
to be hanged, Sept. 23, 1864. 

Apr. 23. Pike Bartlett suicided at Carder's ranch, from 
despondency. 

May 10. Pedro F. Silva, native of Portugal, killed at 
Brown's Flat by a cave. 

July — . Peter Sfcemmer, a German, aged 37, committed 
suicide at Garrote with a pistol; no cause 
given. 

July 11. William Fleming, of Don Pedro's Bar, mur- 
dered, and house robbed of $8,000. 

Dec. 9. Larkin Richardson, native of Massachusetts, 
aged 65, found dead at Garrote. 
1865. 

Jan. 16. Henry Merle, of Shaw's Flat, run over and killed 
by a loaded wagon. 

Jan. 16. Joseph Snyder suicided in Columbia, with a 
pocket knife. No cause known. 

Feb. 4. Four Chileiios died at Italian Bar, from inordinate 
wine-drinking. Their names were: Santiago 
Molino, J. J. Villa, Isidro Sanchez, and San- 
tiago Godie. 
j» Feb. 18. George Sharratts purchased the Tuolumne Cou- 
' rier of J. Duchow, Esq., and moved it to 

Sonora. 

Feb. 20. William A. Boyce accidentally shot and' killed 
by his son, at Davis' Flat. Deceased was 67 
years of age, a native of North Carolina, and 
left a large family. 



HISTORY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY 283 

May 6. Pierre Mathieu committed suicide at the French 
Garden, Sonora, by means of a shotgun. 

June 17. Fire in Sonora. The "Long Tom," Rudorff's 
restaurant, and Livingston's shoe shop de- 
stroyed. 

July 1. Louis Schiftean, French, aged 40, killed at the 
Consuelo Mine, by a falling rock. 

July 8. Chinese sluice-robber killed by John Mangan, at 
Brown's Flat. 

July — . Sleeper, banker in Columbia, failed. 

Sept. 30. Fire in the Tigre, Sonora. Loss, slight. 

Oct. 12. William E. Thornburg murdered on Sullivan's 
Creek, near Algerine, for his money. 

Oct. 23. H. W. Williams killed and — Shirley wounded, 
by W. N. Harris, in a mining claim dispute, 
near Jamestown. 

Nov. 16. Daniel Kane killed by a cave at Columbia. 

Dec. 6. Sheriff Bourland killed a Chinaman, at Columbia, 
while endeavoring to make an arrest. 

Dec. 20. County Jail at Sonora burned, and Thos. Horn, 
a native of Ireland, aged 3G, who was con- 
fined therein, perished in the flames. The 
loss to the County was about $25,000. 
1866. 

Jan. 1. Colonel B. F. Moore, a '4:9-er, and a well known 
resident of Sonora in early days, died in San 
Francisco. 

Feb. 2. Attempted murder of William Kelly, of Sonora, 
at Cramer's ranch, by Cramer and wife. 

Feb. 25. Jules F. Cholez, French, aged 33, shot and killed 
by Indian sluice-robbers, on Sullivan's Creek, 
near Sonora. 

March 20. Patrick Lambert killed by a runaway horse, 
near Sonora. 



284 HISTORY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 

April 7. John Morris, of Jamestown, accidentally killed 
by Walker Howe's pistol, during a fight. 

May 12. Antonio Diaz, a Chileiio, committed suicide, near 
Sonora, with a pistol. 

July — . Montezuma destroyed by fire. 

July 16. The Tuolumne Courier suspended publication. 

Aug. 13, Six persons broke jail; four recaptured. 

Sept. — . A. A. H. Tuttle, first County Judge of Tuolumne* 
ex-member of the Legislature, and some time 
Assistant Secretary of State, died at Donner 
Lake of hemorrhage. Deceased was one of 
the first settlers of this county. 

Oct. 13. Fire in Columbia. Loss $4,200. 

Oct. 15. Geo. Gordon committed suicide while insane. 

Oct. 20. Child of "William Martin, of Summersville, burned 
to death. 

Nov. — . Geo. McQuade, of Sonora, killed in Bridgeport, 
Mono County, by being run over by a loaded 
wagon . 

Nov. 28. Sang Hee killed in Sonora by her lover, Ah 
Tuck, who made his escajje. 

Dec. 8. Chas. S. Fowler, aged 55, native of Massachu- 
setts, killed by Kobert Wallace. 

Dec. 19. -4??iertcan i^/oy newspaper suspended . 



John Gindel, a German, suicided near Colum- 
bia, probably through insanity . 

A. N. Francisco, editor of the Democrat, died. 

Isaac Watson shot one Henderson for criminal 
relations with the former's wife. H. re- 
covered . 

Thos . Dunn killed in a claim near Sonora . 

Juan Gallegillos fell dead at Sullivan's Creek. 



1867. 


Jan. 


— , 


Mar. 


1. 


Mar. 


11. 


Mar. 


18. 


Mar. 


21. 



mSTOEY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 285 

Mar. 22. Morgan's Building burned in Columbia . Loss 
$2,000. 

April 10. Adam Backer, German, died of heart disease in 
Columbia. 

May 25. Mrs. Lassa, of Deer Flat, killed by a cow that 
she was milking. 

May 27. Laurel Hill Quartz Mill burned at Cherokee. 
Loss $3,000. No insurance. 

June 5. Henry R. Peterson killed in a raining quarrel at 
Yorktown. by James Ford. 

July 6. O. S. Davis' house burned, in Sonora. Loss 
$2,000. 

July 15. Extensive fire in Sonora. The Tigre burned. 
Loss $18,000. Origin of fire unknown. 

July 29. Fire in Sonora. , Houses of Dolores and Sugg 
burned. Loss $1,000. 

Sept. 21. Henry Rowland Maltbie found dead at Marsh's 
Flat with nine buckshot in his body . Verdict, 
murder by unknown parties. Deceased was 
a native of Georgia, 36 years of age . 

Sept. 21. Diedrich Michael, aged 40, of German extrac- 
tion, found dead, having hung himself during 
a supposed attack of insanity . 

Nov. 27. William F. Cooper, of Rock River Ranch, while 
insane from the efi'ects of a fall, murdered his 
wife with a pistol . 

Dec. 29. Pasqual Rochaz, alias Gonzales, hung himself in 
the jail at Sonora, when in confinement on a 
charge of killing Thomas Oljin in the preced- 
ing August . 

1868. 
Jan. 29, Henry Williams, of Deer Fiat, died from a 
wound accidentally inflicted by himself. 



286 HISTOKY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 

Feb. — . John Murray, alias "Scotty," aged 38, committed 

suicide witli a shotgun. Strong drink, the 

cause . 
Mar. 30. United States Hotel and theater building adjoin- 
ing destroyed by fire and^^the Episcopal church 

damaged. Sonora. 
June 17. Tuolumne National Guard mustered out of 

service. 
June 27. Mohammed Abdallah, an Arab, died in Sonora 

from heart disease. 
July 4. Lockey Hancock, aged 43, native of Tennessee, 

killed at Big Oak Flat by the race-horse which 

he rode, colliding with a tree. 
July 26. Pierre Eugene Mitchell killed by a cave in his 

claim at Columbifl. Deceased was a native of 

France, aged 35. 
Aug. 4. Wilson Teas rnn over and killed on the Sonora 

and Mono road . 
Aug. 21. Fry & Comstock's mill, at Calder's Ranch, 

burned. Insured for $6,000. 
Aug. 21. Wehmeyer & Fuller's soap factory, on Main 

street, near the foundry-, in Sonora, burned. 

Insured for $2,025. 
Sept. 22. Aagustus Johnson, aged 52, Swedish, found 

dead in Sullivan's Creek. 
Sept. 30. William D. Kenower, a native of Pennsylvania, 

suicided at Columbia with a shotgun. 
Oct. 3. C. Smith, a German, aged 61 years, died of 

heart disease in Sonora. 
Oct. 9. Cochrane's sawmill,. at Garrote, burned by in- 
cendiaries. Insured for $5,000. 
Oct. 19. August Meyer, a German music teacher, died 

suddenly of heart disease. 
Ocf. 21. Earthquake. 



HISTORY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 287 

Nov. 17. A Chileno killed by his fellow-countrymen at 
Montezuma. Cause unknown. 

1869. 
Jan. 16. John Brown, killed by a cave, in a mine on the 

North Fork of the Tuolumne. 
Jan. 28. James Munson, aged 60, of Scotch nativity, 

found drowned, near Don Pedro's Bar. 
Feb. 22. Peter Kelly, aged 2 years, drowned in a flume 

at Springfield. 
Mar. 17. J. A. R. Child, aged 48, native of Mass., killed 

by accident, in a mine at Garrote. 
Mar. 21. Selig RitzwoUer, aged 44, a German dry goods 

dealer, committed suicide in Sonora by hang- 
ing. Cause, despondency. 
Apr. — . Railroad agitation. 
Apr. 10. jSon of James Arthur accidentally killed at Woods' 

Crossing. 
Apr. 22. Harris & Rodden's store burned at Montezuma. 

Loss $8,000, insurance $5,000. 
May 4. Son of L. Jacobs, aged 4 years, drowned at 

Columbia. 
May 9. Gregorio, fatally stabbed by Flores, another 

Mexican, at Big Oak Flat. 

June 8. Hill, aged 19, drowned at Chinese Camp. 

June 8. Dashaway Hall, at Brown's Flat, burned. 
July — . Stephen Tonkin and Peter Lean, killed by a 

slide in the Soulsby Mine. 
Aug. — . Mrs. Roessler thrown from a buggy and killed, 

near Chinese Camp. 
Aug. 27. Joseph Brothers' store, in Sonora, burned. 

Loss $15,000. 
Aug. 28. Henry Strebling, a Cornish miner, aged 28, 

killed in the Mount Jefferson Mine, at Garrote. 



288 msTOBY OF tdolumne county. 

Aug. 28. Santiago Kobles, a horse-thief, hung by a mob, 

near Don Pedro's Bar. 
Sept. 1. FireinSonora. C. Burden's shop burned. Loss 

$1,450, insurance $500. 
Sept. 16. Joseph Fordal, from Portugal, aged 30, killed 

by a slide near Columbia. 
Sept. 19. Chinese riot in Jamestown. One Chinaman 

killed and several wounded. 
Oct. 2. Dr. A. C. Bratton and Thomas J. Evans engaged 

in a quarrel at a ball in Jamestown, and both 

received serious wounds. 
Oct. 26. William Arthur, editor of the Union Democrat^ 

found dead in his room, at the Sonora Hotel. 
Nov. 9. Frederick Sehwilk, a German brewer, committed 

suicide at Shaw's Flat, by severing an artery. 
William Gr. Heslep, died in Arizona. 
Dr. Perez Snell, died, aged 87 years. 



Dec. 


6. 


Dec. 


17. 


1870. 


Jan. 


21. 



William Whitto, a Cornish miner, aged 50 years, 

hanged himself in Sonora. 
Mar. 27. A Chinawoman, murdered and robbed near 

Jacksonville, by unknown parties. 
Apr. 11. f Christisen Mosbrogan, a Norwegian, aged 45, 

found dead at Mountain Brow . 
Apr. 18. Walter Griffin, aged 5, drowned at Columbia. 
Aug. 30. Fire at Chinese Camp. Loss $28,000. 
Sept. 20, Orrin E. Harrison, aged 62, murdered near 

Hyde's Mill. The weapons used were an axe 

and a rifle. Hiram W. Poole, accused of the 

crime, committed suicide in jail. 
Sept. 21. Spencer Blair, aged 50, a farmer residing at 

Summerville, fell dead. 
Sept. 29. Judge J. N. Stone, died in San Francisco. 



HISTORY 01 TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 289 

Oct. 17. Christian Keist, native of New York, aged 50, 
killed by a slide at Mexican Flat. 

Dec. 21. J. C. Scott, severely wounded by Thomas New- 
ton, alias " Texas," who was sent to State 
Prison for three years for the offense. 
1871. 

Jan. 18. Bernard Tanzi, aged 50, native of Italy, killed 
in his claim, near Sonora, by a slide. 

Jan. 24. Hyppolite Bonvard, a French miner, aged 45, 
found murdered. 

Feb. 13. Kobert Bigsby, native of N. B., aged 45, died 
suddenly, at Jeffersonville. 

Mar. 11. Henry Thompson, a Scotchman, aged 50, fell 
dead from intemperance, at Algerine. 

Mar. 11. Hiram W. Poole, held for the murder of O. R. 
Harrison, suicided in jail. 

Apr. — . Large fire in Sonora; the Riffle Saloon, and other 
buildings burned. Loss $21,000, insurance 
$14,000. 

Apr. — . Prentice Mulford was a contributor to the Union 
Democrat at this time. 

June 9. M. H. Hyde's dwelling house burned. Loss 



June 13. Chinese sluice robber killed, at Columbia. 

July — . Fire at corner of Washington and Hospital 
Streets, Sonora, caused by explosion of kero- 
sene. Oppenheimer's store burned. Loss 
$8,000, insurance $4,000. 

Aug. 11. John S. Anderson, a Swede, aged 50, toll-keeper 
on the Sonoma and Mono road, murdered by 
two men. 

Sept. — . J. R. Hancock, aged 40, native of Tenn., mur- 
dered at a point fifty miles east of Sonora. 
Doubtless by Indians. 



290 fflSTOBY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 

Oct. 15. John "F. Rebstock, known as "Peg Leg," 
killed in Columbia, by William Jones, who 
was sentenced to State's Prison for 14 years. 

Nov. 7. Charles Thompson, killed by Jacob Oliver, east 
of Sonora, in a drunken fight. They were 
both Swedes, and were partners in farming. 
Oliver was convicted of murder and sent to 
State Prison for 12 years. 

Dec. 2. J. M. Hernandez accidentally killed by Henry 
Morgan, in a drunken fight at Columbia. 



John M. Loring, of Shaw's Flat, found dead. 
Joseph Perano and wife, Italians, killed near 

Sonora by a runaway team. 
Earthquake. 
Ah Mow killed by Ah Bun, a gambler, at 

Jamestown. 
Earthquake. 

Richard Inch drowned in the Tuolumne. 
Josiah S. Kimball committed suicide with a 

pistol; he was a native of Maine, a miner, 

and aged 45 years. 
Jacob Betzer, a German living at Big Oak Flat, 

killed by a fall. 
W. H. Engles killed by Thomas Willis, who 

was tried for manslaughter and acquitted. 
Banks Winton, aged 92, the oldest resident of 

Tuolumne county, found dead in his room, 

at Shaw's Flat. 
Sept. 22. Louis Lefevre, a Frenchman, aged 70, fell dead 

in Sonora from natural causes. 
Oct. 8. James W. Coffroth dropped dead in Sacramento. 
Oct. 19. William Hill, aged 48, of Irish descent, killed 

by a cave at Brown's Flat. 



1872. 




Jan. 
Jan. 


15. 


Mar. 
Apr. 


26. 


Apr. 
Apr. 
May 


3. 

26. 

5. 


May 


7. 


July 


29. 


July 


29. 



Jan. 


18. 


Jan. 


— . 


Feb. 


7. 


Mar. 


— . 



HISTORY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 291 

Nov. 2. Nicolo Blatcovich killed by the falling of a flag- 
staff at the City Hotel, Sonora. 

Dec. 19. Geo. ¥. Wright, aged 41, miner, native of Ohio, 
died of apoplexy at the Excelsior mine. 

Dec. 24. Captain Henry Smith, of Brown's Flat, suicided 
in the County Hospital. 

Dec. 30. Manuel Inas, a Portuguese miner, killed by a 
cave at Spring Hill, on Woods' Creek. 

1873. 

William Logan, from Pennsylvania, drowned. 
Eudora Pope, aged 11 years, killed while skating 

in Columbia. 
B. A. Mardis died suddenly at Sacramento. 
James McLean, a former well-known resident 

of Columbia, died in Stockton. 
Mar. 6. Ah Bun found gniltyof the murder of Ah Mow% 

and sentenced to be hanged April 25. 
Mar. — . Floyd R. Cowles, aged 46, from New York, 

froze to death near Northrup's. 
Apr. 7. Thomas Hodge died suddenly of heart disease 

at Confidence. 
Apr. 13. Ah Bun, under sentence of death, hung himself 

in jail at Sonora. 
Apr. 30. Henry Vail died suddenly of heart disease at 

Northrup's; deceased was a native of New 

York, aged 66. 
May 8. Henry Howard found dead at Quartz Mountain; 

cause debility. 
May 15. Chinaman killed in Shine's claim, in Columbia, 

by a cave. 
May — . Ah Fook murdered in Columbia. 
June 24. Charng Wy, a Chinese desperado, of Chinese 

Camp, attempted murder, resisted arrest, and 

committed suicide. 



292 HISTORY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 

July 8. Burns, aged 8, run over and killed at 

Columbia. 
July 14, Daniel Walker killed at Deadraan's Bar, on the 

Stanislaus. 
July 18. Thomas N. Cazneau died in San Francisco, aged 

64. Deceased had been a prominent resident 

of Tuolumne in early days. 
July 31. Joseph Kademacher killed by a falling building, 

at Columbia. 
Aug. — . Henry P. Barber died in San Francisco of par- 
alysis. At one time he held the position of 

District Attorney in Tuolumne county, and 

took a prominent part in public a£fairs. 
Aug. 15. Lot Carmell, aged 68, killed at Pine Log by 

falling over a cliff. 
Sept. 8. John H. Eichards stabbed to death by William 

Grundy. 
Sept. 18. Ah Kew murdered and robbed at Soldiers' 

(julch, probably by Indians. 
Sept. 22. Torgar Olsen killed by a boy of 17, named 

John Gillen. 
Oct. 11. Armand Hincelin, French, aged 48, painter by 

occupation, committed suicide by shooting, at 

Chinese Camp. 
Oct. 17. The shaft of the great Soulsby mine burned out; 

loss $3,000 to 14,000. 

1874. 

Jan, — . Yo Hung hanged himself at Campbell's Flat. 
Jan. 9. Son of Joseph Daigle, aged 9, drowned in a 

well at Jamestown. 
Jan. 17. A. J. Mussche, a Belgian miner, aged 60, killed 

by a slide at Jamestown. 
Mar. 19. Simon Marque, a Frenchman, aged 50, died of 

heart disease in Sonora. 



HISTORY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTT. 293 

Mar. 23. Martin Barry, aged 50, killed in the White Rock 
claim, Brown's Flat, by a cave. 

May — . Prof. Denton delivered a course of six lectures on 
scientific matters, in Sonora. 

June ] . Andreas Vanderwerff, alias Tom Potter, crushed 
to death in his claim at Experimental Gulch. 

June 2. J. D. Murphy's flour mill, near Big Oak Flat, 
burned. 

June — . M. B. Duffield, a former well-known inhabitant 
of Tuolumne, murdered in Arizona. 

June 15. William H. McLarty killed by a fall at 
Montezuma. 

June 28. Fire in Sonora; John Wolfliug's house burned; 
loss $1,500, insurance $600. 

July 8. Fire in Soulsbyville; August Authemann's store 
and contents destroyed; loss , insur- 
ance $2,000. 

July — . George Washington Haver found dead at Camp- 
bell's Flat from old age and debility. 

Aug. 1. William Morgan, formerly of Columbia, killed 
by Indians. 

Aug. 7. Fire in Catholic church, Sonora; loss $3,000. 

Sept. 1. Jose Baracca murdered by Henry Rhodes at 
Campbell's Flat. R. was convicted of man- 
slaughter and sent to State Prison for two 
years. 

Sept. 11. Thomas Ripley, a miner, native of Massachu- 
setts, fell into a shaft at Chinese Camj), and 
was instantly killed. 

Oct. 1. G. H. Ashe's house in Sonora burned; loss $2,000. 

Oct. 9. S. M. Comfort crushed to death at Bradford & 
Way's saw-mill 

Oct. 26. Thomas Cunniff died suddenly in Columbia, 
from the eflects of intemperance. 



294 



HISTOEY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 



Nov. 7, The Sonora and Milton stage, Miller's line, 
robbed of the express box, containing $341, 
at Salt Spring Valley. 

Nov. 14. Adolph Parou, aged 50 years, killed in Colum- 
bia by Thomas Hays, for debauching the 
latter's daughter. 

1875. 

Jan. 25. Chinaman killed at Montezuma, by a cave. 
Jan. — . Donald Davidson, a well known miner, died in 

San Francisco. Deceased was at one time 

principal owner in the great Soulsby mine. 
Feb. 10. G. H, Ashe's house again burned. 
March — . U. S. mail stage robbed at Reyuolds' Ferry, by 

three men, and over $G,000 taken. 
March 27. John McCoole, miner at Table Mountain, caved 

on and killed. Deceased left a wife and three 

children. 
March — . Cinnabar discovered at Marsh's Flat, on the 

Tuolumne River. 
May — . Catholic Church in Columbia burned. 
May — . ' Dr. J. J. Franklin died from the effects of an 

accident. 
May 13, Catherine Long, of Jacksonville, chastised by 

her brother, Patrick Harney, from the effects 

of whicli she died. 
June 18. Chinaman murdered near Jacksonville. 
June 19. Another one murdered and robbed near Mon- 
tezuma. 
July 4. Ernest Adolf Krause thrown from a horse and 

killed, in Columbia. 
July 8. Fire at Chinese Camp. Loss, $ ; insurance, 

$9,000. 
July 16. Fire at Sonora. H. L. Street's residence burned. 

Loss not given; insurance, $1,600. 



HISTORY OP TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 295 

July 24. Joseph Antoine found dead iu Springfield. 

July 25. Harvey Briggs killed at Northrup's by a team. 

July 26. Fire at Shaw's Flat. Dwelling house of Dickin- 
son burned; loss, $5,000. 

July 31. Robbery of Sonora and Milton stage, at Rey- 
nolds' Ferry. One man engaged. $160 taken. 

Aug. 20. Paulo Demartini drowned himself in a mining 
shaft near Jamestown. 

Aug. — . W. H. Roberts and E. H. Clough became pro- 
prietors of the Union Democrat. 

Aug. 22. J. Barbetas murdered an Indian woman at Mon- 
tezuma. 

Sept. 19. Peter Nelson, aged 50, miner by occupation, 
found dead in Sonora. 

Sept. 27. George L. Barker, or Booker, died suddenly at 
Jamestown, aged 48. 

Nov. — . Heavy rains this month. The Phoenix reservoir 
burst, and carried away the bridge over Sul- 
livan's Creek, and drowned three or four Chi- 
nese miners living below. 

Nov. 30. Mrs. Bridget Gaynor shot and killed by Patrick 
Shine, at Columbia. 

Dec. 1. The Sonora and Milton stage robbed, near Union 
Bridge; $600 taken. 

Dec. 1. John Podesta's distillery, at Yankee Hill, burned. 

Dec. — . John S. Nugent, of Columbia, said to have been 
a natural son of George IV, by Mrs. Fitz- 
james, died in the Insane Asylum. 

1876. 

Jan. 17. Abner Murray found dead near Sonora, having 
committed suicide with strychnine. 

Jan. 20. William Von Stein, German storekeeper, found 
dead at Pine Log. 



296 HISTORY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 

Jan. 29, E. M. Hampton's house burned, at Koach's Camp. 

Feb. — . Religious revival in Sonora. 

Feb. 15. Captain Henry Bacon, of Summerville, an old 

'49-er, died of paralysis; aged 72. 
March 7. John Sharwood drowned in Sullivan's Creek. 
April 25. Ernest Stocker^ a Dane, aged 45, suicided at 

Mountain Pass. 
May 1. O. C. Gunn shot and killed by John Conlin, in 

self-defense, at Experimental Gulch. 
May 5. Sloan killed by Hyde, in Sonora. Hyde, Burns 

and Richards were held for the murder; of 

whom one, Hyde, was convicted, he receiving 

a seven-years' sentence. 
May. 7. W. H. Smith, once Lieutenant in Stevenson's 

Regiment, suicided with morphine, at the 

Hospital in Sonora. 
May 15. J. M. Ayres committed suicide with a rifle, at 

Deer Flat. Supposed cause, despondency. 
May 15. John Wagner, aged 14, accidentally killed by his 

brother Charles, with a shotgun, at Chinese 

Camp. 
May 28. John Hyde's building burned; loss, $1,000. 
June 20. F. Bacinta, aged 16, killed by a cave at Mar- 
tinez. 
July 3. Jack Swindells, an Englishman, and old resident 

of Tuolumne, found dead on Sullivan's Creek. 
July 19. Alfred Warren Stearns died suddenly at Shaw's 

Flat. 
Sept. 22. Fire in Sonora. House of Cuevas, on Hospital 

street, burned. Loss, $2,200; insurance, $900. 
Sept. 29. Quin Sing murdered at Central Ferry, by par- 
ties unknown. 
Nov. 3. Edward Connolly, charged with robbery, broke 

jail at Sonora. 



HISTORY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 297 

Nov, 15. Unsuccessful attempt to rob the Sonera and Mil- 
ton stage, at Brown's Flat. 

Dec. 2. M. W. Brooks, aged 66, an old resident of So- 
nora, killed by the fall of a tree. 

Dec. 11. Earthquake. 
1877. 

Jan. 4. Henry Pilon, known as "Bibi," died from ex- 
posure. 

Jan. 17. John McCabe, once Justice of the Peace at 
Brown's Flat, suicided at San Jose . 

Feb. 10. Peter Olsen drowned in Tuolumne Eiver. 

Feb. 17 . Jean, or Victor, Belli, French, aged 45, suicided 
with a pistol at Peoria Flat . 

Mar. — . Robbery of the Sonora and Milton stage at 
Reynold's Ferry. $108 taken. 

June 17. T. Brodigan's Sonora Hotel burned. Loss, 
$14,600. Insurance, $5,500,] 

July 9. Asa Timmons from Michigan, aged 42, shepherd 
by occupation, died in the hospital at Sonora, 
from the effects of injuries received from a 
bear . 

July 14. Fire in Sonora. Reitz's saloon burned. Loss, 
$1,100. 

July 18. Fire in Sonora. Losses to John Perano, F. 
Conrad, Parsons & Wise, H.H.Rowell, Mrs. 
Lopez, Steinmetz, and Van Harlingen. Gross 
amount, $5,850, with insurance of $950. 

Aug. 9 . Robbery of the Sonora and Milton stage by three 
men. Amount taken, $800. 

Aug. — . Frank Gomez killed by a cave at Columbia. 

Aug. 15. Ohio Mining Company's Works burned . Loss, 
$3,000. 

Aug. — . The Sonora and Milton stage again robbed at 
the usual place, and $600 taken. Two men, 
Odum and Benson, were arrested for it. 



298 HISTOKY OF TUOLUMNE COUIJTT. 

Oct. 1, Francis D, Cook, miner, native of Maine, aged 
44, drowned in the South Fork of the Stanis- 
laus, near Northrup's. 

Oct. 6. Fire at Knickerbocker Flat . L. Bonder's store 
burned. Loss, $5,000; insurance, $3,000. 

Oct" 12. Albert Schwilk kicked to death by a horse in 
Columbia. 

Dec. 27. James Morrison, aged 9, accidentally killed at 
Jamestown . 

1878. 

Jan. 15. Robbery of the Sonora and Milton stage at 
Brown's Flat, and over $5,000 taken. 

Jan. — . Capt. Buck, aged 75, '49er, died at Rawhide of 
paralysis . 

Feb. 2. Fire at Chinese Camp. Dr. Lampson's office 
and drug-store burned . Loss, $3,000 . 

Mar. 16. Bernard Martin, Irish, miner, aged 42, died 
suddenly of apoplexy in Sonora . 

Mar. 18. The house of John Atbers, at Big Oak Flat, 
was burned, and the ow'ner fatally injured in 
the fire. A. was a native of Maryland, 78 
years of age. 

Mar. 19. W. D. Davies' house, near Columbia, burned. 

Mar. 23. Bradford & Way's planing mill, in Sonora, 
burned. Loss, over $5,000, with no insur- 
ance. The mill was rebuilt and running 
again within a month. 

April 13. rDunster murdered at Yankee Hill. D. Rolero 
was arrested for the crime, but escaped con- 
viction. 

May — . Christopher J. Brown, aged 10, accidentally 
shot himself, at Spring Meadows, the wound 
proving fatal . 



HISTORY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 299 

May 14. A, H. Colburn, aged 64, native of Massachu- 
setts, fell dead at Kincaid's. 
May 15. Marie Guitouneau, French, aged 54, found 

dead at Pine Log. 
Aug. 23 . Michael Ryan killed by a fall in the New Albany 

mine. 
Aug. 30. Ah Chung killed at the Halfway House by a 

cave. 
Sept. 6. Col. Thomas R. Stoddart died in Sonora. 
Oct.^ 1. Thomas Mahoney died of injuries received in his 

claim at Brown's Flat. 
Oct. 19. Per Johnson, of Sonora, a Swede, aged 54, 

suicided, leaving a wife and family. 
Oct. 29. Joseph E. Kenniston died of heart disease at 

Garrote. 
Nov. 2. W. H. Rulofson killed in San Francisco by a 

fall. Had been one of Tuolumne's prominent 

citizens in earl}' days. 
Dec. 31. Fire at Confidence. Mrs. Hanub' hotel burned. 

1879. 

Feb. 27. Valentine Hahn, aged 69, suicided in Sonora 
by means of a shotgun. 

Mar. 16. Tuolumne Brewery damaged by fire. Loss 
$2,600, partly insured. 

Mar. 27. Samuel J. Brown, of Columbia, a carpenter by 
occupation, suicided by poison, owing to ill- 
health. 

Apr. 7. John McCarty, Irish, aged 59, shot and killed 
by Thomas Maguire, aged 80, at Byrne's Ferry, 
At his trial Maguire plead guilty of man- 
slaughter and was sentenced to two and a 
half years in State's Prison. 

May 27. Fire in Columbia; Louis Levy's residence con- 
sumed, with a loss of |1,600. 



300 HISTOEY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 

May 30. S. R. Lucas, Irish, aged 52, found dead near 
Deer Flat. Verdict, murdered by a China- 
man. 

June 16. Daughter of Michael Wilson, aged 7, drowned 
at Chinese Camp. 

July 14. Thomas Newton, alias " Texas," killed by 
George Sandoval, at Wolfling's slaughter 
house, in Sonora. Sandoval was released. 

July 23. Fire near Columbia; house of John Williamson 
burned. 

Sept. — . Discovery of the great bonanza, by Divoll & Co. 

Sept. 1. Fire in Sonora; Baptist church damaged to the 
extent of several hundred dollars. 

Nov. 14. Francis Terry, accidentally killed near Chinese 
Camp. 

Nov. 30. James Calder died suddenly, at a point east of 
Sonora. 

1880. 

Jan. 5. Judge Rooney became Superior Judge. 

Jan. 17. Ephraim A. Harlow, killed by a runaway at 

Chinese Camp. 
Jan. 19. Fire at Columbia. P. B. Bacon's house burned. 

Loss , insurance $500. 

Feb. 1. Michael Brown, of Brown's Flat, a miner of 

Scotch descent, aged 71 years, committed 

suicide by shooting. 
Mar. 14. Flour mill of James T. Padderson, at Moun- 
tain Brow, destroyed by fire. Loss not given; 

insurance $1,000. 
Apr. 28. Thomas Taylor, aged 34, English, found dead 

at Bald Mountain. 
May 16. Thomas Belton, from Chili, aged 75, found dead 

in his cabin, on Curtis Creek. 



HISTORY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 301 

Jane 20. Accident at the Olsen mine; the cage contain- 
ing four men fell forty feet, severely injuring 
all of them. 

June 24 L. D. Bond, a United States surveyor, drowned 
in the Tuolumne River. 

July 17. Ah Hong, murdered on Wards Ferry road by 
unknown persons. 

July 28. John Gibbons, aged 22, stage-driver by occupa- 
tion, shot himself dead, by accident, at Mil- 
ton. 

Sept. 1. Fire in Chinese Camp; property of Egling, Wil- 
son and Morris, destroyed; loss not stated; 
insurance $3,800. 

Oct. 1. Fatal stage accident near Priest's Hotel; Father 
Treinor, a Catholic Priest, was mortally 
injured. 

Oct. — . George Scammell found dead near Northrup's; 
verdict of coroner's jury, death caused by 
parties unknown. 

Oct. — . Fire in Sonora. J. C. Duchow's residence 
burned; loss $3,000. Barry and wife, of 
Columbia, arrested as incendiaries. 

Oct. 22. James Maclean, accidentally killed in Auburn. A 
much respected former resident of Tuolumne. 
His age at the time of death was 49. 

Nov. 31. Niels Nelson, a Norwegian miner, found dead at 

Mountain Brow. 
Dec. 28. Charles Grant, aged 21, shot himself with a 
pistol, at Quartz Mountain. Supposed suicide, 

1881. 

Jan. — . Wm. H. Ford, once County Clerk of Tuol- 
umne, died in Martinez, Contra Costa County. 
Mar. — . Dominico Antonioli, aged 72, found dead at 
Italian Camp. 



302 HISTOEY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 

Mar. 21. Philip Mathews died at Fallon's Hotel, Colum- 
bia. Probable suicide. 
Apr. 25. Ah Chee killed by Ah Own, in Sonora. The 
assassin was found guilty and sentenced to 
fifteen years' imprisonment. 
Fire in Sonora. Thomas McGee's house situated 

on Washington street, burned. 
E. W. Cordero and Treney C. Marshall found 
guilty of abducting Helen Armand for pur- 
poses of prostitution. 
Sam Smith, miner, aged 59, native of Sweden, 

killed by a blast, at Cherokee. 
Frank Way's lumber-mill burned. Loss $30,000; 

no insurance. 
Wm. Bruskie, Jr., suicided at Peoria Flat, by 

taking poison. 
Fire on Drew's ranch, near Garrote, causing a 
loss of 13,000. John L. Morrison, aged 5G, 
native of N. C. , died from over-exertion on 
this occasion. 
Sept. 21. Attempted assassination of E.A. Rodgers, at 

Sonora, by unknown parties. 
Sept. — Railroad agitation. 



May 


7. 


May 


27. 


July 


14. 


July 


28. 


Aug. 


18. 


Sept. 


— . 



HISTORY OF TDOLUMNE COUNTY. 303 



OFFICEI|S OF TUOLUMNE COUHTT, 



The following tables give the names of the incumbents 
of the various offices, with the dates at which their terms 
of office began — the elections mostly occurring in September 
or October of the preceding year. 

In addition, these facts have been elicited: <j 

The total vote of Tuolumne County in 1851 was 1,282. 
In 1852, it was 5,672; in 1857, 5,504; in 18G3, 3,777; in 
1868, 2,095; in 1872, 1,559; and in 1877, 1,807. 

In 1851, Sonora polled 650 votes; in 1852, 1,030. 

Columbia's vote in the former year was 168, while in 
1852 it had risen to 1,230. 

Shaw's Flat, which in 1851 threw 114 votes, in the fol- 
lowing year gave 368; while Springfield, where no polls 
were held in '51, by the next year had 280 voters. 

To explain apparent discrepancies in the following tables, 
it should be recollected that the number of townships in 
the County was frequently changed, the number varying 
from four to seven; and also, it should be said, that for a 
portion of the time the Coroner performed the duties of 
Public Administrator, as did the County Clerk those of Re- 
corder and Auditor. 

During a portion of the time, also, Assessors and Col- 
lectors of the taxes were elected for each of the four revenue 
districts into which the County was divided. 

During the years 1871 and 1877 no changes took place; 
therefore, these years do not appear in the table. 



304 



HISTOKY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 



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HISTOEY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 



Justices of 
Justices of 
Justices of 
Justices of Peace, 



Peace, 
Peace, 
Peace, 



Justices of 
Justices of 
Constables, 

Constables, 
Constables, 

Constables, 
Constables, 
Constables, 



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Justices of 
Justices of 
Justices of 
Constables, 
Constables, 
Constables, 
Constables, 
Conatables, 
Constables, 



Peace, 
Peace, 
Tp. 1 

Tp. 2 
Tp. 3 

Tp. 4 
Tp. 5 
Tp. 6 



Tp. 1, 
Tp. 2. 
Tp. 3 
Tp. 4. 



Tp. 5. 
Tj}. 6. 



Peace, Tp. 1. 
Peace, Tp. 2. 
Peace, Tp. 3. 
Peace, Tjx 4. 
Peace, Tp. 5. 
Peace, Tp. 6. 

Tp. 1 

Tp. 2 

Tp. 3 

Tp. 4 

Tp. 5 

Tp. (i 



1870. 



J. Letford, J. Shaw. ... 



J. Harrington, A. Buller' 
dieck 

A. B. Preston, C. B. Cut- 
ting 

M. McGehee, W. L. Os 
brey 



M. Kenney, G. Steinmetz. 



Pat Smith, T. M. Bvrne. . 
A. M. Hill, W. W. Boyle. 



B. Dorrance, J. Donahud 



1876. 



A. F. Boyle 

A. Bullerdieck . . . 

J. y. Dixon 

W. L. Osbrey.... 



J. Monahan 

Pat Smith 

Chas. J, Mussche. 
E. W. Cline 



1872, 



Chas. Tupper, J. MoCabe. 



E. E. White, A. Buller- 
dieck 

A. B. Preston, C. B. Cut- 
ting 

W. L. Osbrey, J. Gamble. 



J. Ferral, J. Monahan.. 



Pat Smith, J. J . White. . 
A. M. Hill. S. C. Whee- 

lock 

J. Thompson, J. Young. 



1878. 

J. L. Miller 

E. E. White . . . . 
C. B. Cutting... 
T. R. Cope 



■). T. Faxon 

J. N. Davis 

S. C. Wheelock. 
J. W. McCarthy. 



1874. 



J. D. Redwood, W. S. 

Cooper 

E. E. White, A. BuUer- 

A. B. Preston, C. B. Cut- 
ting 

L. K. Hough, W. L. Os- 
brey 



J. T. Faxon, J. Mona- 
han. 
P. Smith, T. L. Miller.. 
J. C. Mann, A. Patten.. 



H. H. Bicknell, E. W. 
Cline 



1880. 



J. L. Miller... 
H. Kluber.... 
C. B. Cutting. 
F. Murrow 



J T. Faxon 

J. N. Davis 

J. E. Duncan 

J. W. McCarthy , 



fliSTORY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 



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HISTORY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTT. 313 

C. H. CARTER. 

This gentleman, a prosperous and prominent citizen of 
Summersville, whose name has been identified with many 
useful and important business ventures of his portion of 
the county, is a New Yorker by birth, having been born in 
Cayuga County, in that State, in June, 1829. His early 
life was passed, as are those of most of New York's favored 
sons, in attending school, and at a later date, the academy. 
Achieving a good education at those seminaries of learning, 
he started for California in January, 1849. He came to 
San Francisco via Panama, arriving July 2nd, and stop- 
ping in the Bay City but a short time, when the mining 
fever drew him to the American River, but soon leaving 
there he wooed the goddess Fortune for a while in Trinity 
County, but unsuccessfully. Returning to Sacramento to 
winter, he again sought the Trinity mines in the spring of 
'50, beginning in the lumber business and also being con- 
nected with gold mining. He remained in Trinity until 
1858, when he came to Tuolumne and opened a store at 
Long Gulch, continuing so occupied until 1860, when he 
removed to Summersville, and establishing himself in the 
same business, remaining there up to the present time. In 
addition to his mercantile interests, Mr. Carter farms a 
quarter section of land with good success. The gentleman 
married Miss Sarah J. Crossett, in 1865, at the town of 
Sonora, having by her five children, viz.: George B,, Ida 
E., W. B., F. R., and Ada E. 



GIDEON WING. 

In the town of Sandwich, county of Barnstable, Mass., 
Mr. Wing was born, on March 1, 1836. In the public 
schools of the town in which he was born, he was edu- 



314 HISTOET OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 

cated. "When seventeen years old, he apprenticed himself 
to the tinsmith trade in the city of New Bedford, Mass., 
which, when learned, formed the basis of his business 
operations in the present time. On November 26, 1862, he 
arrived in San Francisco, having come from New Bedford 
via Panama, On December 1, 1862, he arrived in Colum- 
bia, and at once entered into the hardware and tin busi- 
ness, and now keeps an establishment of that kind on 
Main street. He was elected to the City Council of Co- 
lumbia, and was selected as its President in the days when 
she was a city of more importance than any other in the 
county. He was also at the head of the Fire Department 
for a period of nine years. He was also appointed Assist- 
ant Assessor of Internal Revenue for the Third District. 
His division was composed of Tuolumne, Calaveras, Mar- 
iposa and Mono counties. He was appointed Deputy Col- 
lector of Revenues of the First District, which position he 
held for four years. Married Malinda Pauline Schwilk, a 
native of Kentucky, on May 4, 1870. Frederick S. and 
Laura A. are his children. 



SPENCER BLAIR, (Deceased.) 

The subject of this sketch was born in Broome County, 
New York, in ]V||iy, 1822. His parents were proprietors of 
a farm on which the young Spencer lived, until he emi- 
grated to the Golden State, in 1852, he making the trans- 
continental trip via Panama, crossing the Isthmus, as did 
all travellers at that date, on mule back. Settling at 
Rough and Ready, he mined there for about seven years, 
going in 1859 to Soulsbyville, where he followed the same 
pursuit for two years. For several years subsequently he 
remained unsettled, until finally, in 1865, he moved perma- 
nently upon the farm where his widow now lives. This is 



HISTORY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 315 

situated near Summerville, and consists of one hundred 
and sixty acres of well cultivated land, which is managed 
by Edson, one of the children. Mr. Blair's lamented 
death took place September 22, 1870. He was married to 
Miss M. Knapp, in New York, May 12, 1844, four children 
being the result of this union, of whom three, Edson A. , 
Eloise J. , and George F. , survive. 



C. W.. H. SOLINSKY. 

This estimable gentleman is a native of Poland, his birth 
occurring on August 14, 1814. Coming to the United 
States in 1840, he enlisted six years later in Quitman's 
Division and fought through the war with Mexico, return- 
ing at its close to Pennsylvania. Still unsettled in mind, 
he embarked at the end oi the same year — 1848 — on the 
ship Osceola, and came in her to this State to enter upon 
mining, which he followed for three or four j^ears in Gala, 
vei-as and Mariposa Counties, and then in the vicinity of 
Sonora, until he found more acceptable occupation as a 
member of the firm of Miller & Co. Afterwards becoming 
agent for Adams & Co.'s Express line, he held that office 
until the company's dissolution. In 1857, he received a 
similar appointment from Messrs. "Wells, Fargo & Co., 
which he has retained until the present time. During 
these years Mr. Solinsky has also engaged in several mining 
operations; nor is this all that is within the scope of his 
business activity. One of the best appointed and well 
managed hotels in the foothills has been under his pro- 
prietorship for a number o^ years. 

The Solinsky family includes three children; Frank, now 
a promising young lawyer of San Andreas; Wm. H. Solin- 
sky and Margaret F. Solinsky. 



316 HISTORY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 

J. P. CHAMBERLAIN and J. A. CHAFFEE. 

These two gentlemen, typical " old forty-niners," form 
an example of life-long friendship between men, that is as 
interesting as it is rare. Coming to this State in July 
1849, having made the Cape Horn passage together, they 
have never since been separated; their property interests, 
their friends and acquaintances belong to both. 

Mr. Chamberlain, the elder by two years, was born in 
Windsor County, Vermont, in 1821, residing in that State, 
Massachusetts, and Connecticut, by turns, and on reaching 
a sufficient age he devoted himself to the sash and blind 
manufacture. In Worcester he met the second named, 
Mr. Chaffee, a Connecticut boy, born in Woodstock, Wind- 
ham County, in 1823. The latter had learned the trade of 
wheelwright, at eighteen years of age, working at that oc- 
cupation in Worcester, Mass. The two set sail for Cali- 
fornia in January, 1849, and were six months on their 
voyage. 

On landing in San Francisco, they found employment, re- 
paid at the rate of sixteen dollars per day. Even this i^ay could 
not keep the ardent young men, so at the end of two weeks 
they started for Calaveras County, and went to mining on 
the Mokelumne River, realizing over ten dollars per day 
for one month. Winter then coming on, they turned their 
footsteps toward San Jose, where they worked at carpenter- 
ing tor James F. Reed, Esq. In March, 1851, they came 
to Swett's Bar on the Tuolumne, mining there and at 
Chinese Camp; a portion of the time making high pay, and 
at other times meeting mostly discouragements. For some 
time they were located at Second^Grarrote, where they mined 
with indifferent success until 1853, when they returned 
to San Jose, visiting Gilroy, and at last coming back to 
Second Garrote, where they have remained ever since, with 
the exception of a short time also spent in San Jose. 



HISTOBY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 317 

Their present occupations embrace both mining and farm- 
ing, Mr. Chaffee attending to the former pursuit, while 
Mr. Chamberlain's attention is confined to agriculture. 
They jointly have under their care a very fine orchard, and 
enter also into the manufacture of cider and vinegar. 



JOHN F. BLUETT. 
A native of Cornwall, England, where he was born on 
the 9th of November, 1841, Mr. Bluett came to California 
in 1863, entering into the employ of the New Almaden 
Quicksilver Mining Company , which position he held for 
about a year. At the expiration of that time he came to 
Soulsbyville, his present home, and has remained there 
since, being engaged principally in mining affairs. In 
addition to every-day matters, Mr. Bluett has taken great 
interest in I he social and moral advancement of his fellow- 
beings, being concerned in the formation and conduct of 
the present flourishing and successful schools, temperance 
societies, etc., of his vicinity, his attitude throughout being 
that of a consistent Christian. Marrying before his de- 
parture from England, he has three children — W. J., Anna 
M. (now Mrs. Chapman) and Ellen. 



WINSLOW HUBBAKD. 

The subject of this account was born in Connecticut, 
October 31, 1821, spending his boyhood in the place of his 
nativity. In the year 1844, he started South with a design 
of bettering his fortunes, and after five years spent in the 
Slave States he came across the plains by the Fort Smith 
route, remaining a short time at Greenhorn Point, El 



318 HISTORY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 

Dorado County, going from thence to Mariposa County, 
and finally taking his abode in Tuolumne, where he has 
since remained. During the most of thirty-two years of 
his stay he has resided at Groveland, exerting himself in 
the development of mines, of which he now possesses 
several very promising ones. 



J. W. MAJOR. 

East Tennessee is the land of Mr. Major's nativity, he 
having been born there on the 3d of May, 1832. Coming 
across the plains by the northern route in 1853, he first 
busied himself for a period of eighteen months in farming 
on Dry Creek, in the San Joaquin Valley. The next year 
was spent near Folsom, when, organizing a cattle train, he 
proceeded then to Stockton via Sonora, remaining in the 
neighborhood of Stockton until 1857, coming at that time 
to Tuolumne, and purchasing his present property, near 
Sonora, where he has since resided, with the exception of 
three years spent in running the mill at the Ferguson 
mine, in Mariposa county. Mr. Major possesses about 
four hundred and eighty acres of land. He was married 
to Miss H. Ferguson in March, 1865. 



S. C. BAECLAY. 

Mr. Barclay has been truly a man given to much wan- 
dering. Not Eneas, Virgil's hero, had a history more full 
of travel and adventure. Born in St, Louis, Missouri, 
December 6, 1823, he removed with his parents when quite 
young, successively to habitations in Franklin, then to 
Gasconade county, and finally to Newton county. After 



HISTORY OF TUOLITMNE COUNTY. 319 

these three removes the family went, in 1845, to Texas, 
where, the next year, the young man, now twenty-three 
years old, enlisted as a soldier in the armj' that was then 
invading Mexico, and after six months of fighting in the 
regiment of Colonel "Woods, he, with his fellow-cavalry- 
men, was mustered out after the taking of Monterey. Ee- 
turning to Hopkins county, Texas, he joined., in 1853, an 
expedition bound for California. Ox teams were the mode 
of transportation then in use, and with these slow but 
sure means the party came safely through, their route lead- 
ing through the Osage Nation, up the Arkansas river, 
through Utah. Stopping at first in Yolo County, he soon 
came to Tuolumne county and spent three years in mining 
at Shaw's Flat. Locating next at Springfield, he busied 
himself in the same pursuit until 1862, when he went to 
Summerville, locating himself on a tract of one hundred 
and sixty acres of land, which he is now engaged in tilling. 



E. N. TWIST. 

Born in Livingston county. New York, on March 3, 1821. 
The son of a farmer, he passed his minority upon the 
paternal acres, going when twenty-one to Ohio and subse- 
quently to Wisconsin, eventuallj'^ coming to California. 
The date of his arrival was the Spring of 1850. His first 
mining was done at Placerville, afterwards working at 
Mokelumne Hill. In September, 1852, he came to Tuol- 
umne and began mining at Table Mountain. After six 
months spent there, he proceeded to Algerine and remained 
until 1868, when he moved on his ranch of one hundred 
and sixty acres on the Sonora and Jacksonville road. Mr. 
and Mrs. Twist have one child, Ennis. 



320 HISTORY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 

WILLIAM WILSON. 

Mr. Wilson had the good fortune to be born in the good 
old State of Maine; consequently he is a "Down-easter;'* 
verj' far down East, too, his birthplace was, for he was 
"raised" in Hancock County, almost on the eastern verge 
of the United States. Like nearly all of the able-bodied 
young men of his section, he worked at lumbering. Reach- 
ing the ambitious age of twenty-one, he cut loose from the 
home ties, and setting out for fresher fields and greener 
pastures, he came to Big Bar, on Sullivan's Creek, where 
he toiled for ten years. Resuming his old occupation of 
lumberman, at the end of that time, he became head-saw- 
yer at Smith's Mill, until 1871, when he accepted a similar 
position in Marshall's Mill, retaining it for two years; after 
which he moved to his present location in Arastraville, 
to engage in quartz mining and in running a couple of 
arastras. 



H. W. WILLIAMS 
Is a Swede, who came to America in 1840, then at the 
age of sixteen years. For a livelihood, Mr. Williams fol- 
lowed the sea, until his voyage ol.a the Straits of Magellan 
to this country, in a schooner commanded by Captain 
Wild, where he has since remained, devoting his time to 
mining and to improvements in mining machinery. His 
wanderings, which were numerous, as were those of almost 
every one of the early miners, began upon his departure, in 
1851, from San Francisco for Taylor's Bar, in Calaveras 
County. Mining there for a twelvemonth, he went to 
Campo Seco next, and became a saloon-keeper, until 1854, 
when, coming to Tuolumne, he stopped for a time at Big 
Oak Flat, and then at Deer Flat, mining at those places 
with small success. One summer passed at Turnback 



HISTORY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 321 

Creek ''let him out" of mining for awhile, and he then de- 
voted himself to the butcher business, at Roche's Camp. 
Six months more saw him at Sonora, clerking in a store, 
soon to leave that employment for another trial at the 
meat-block. He followed the business of retailing meat at 
Sonora, Soulsbyville and Confidence, successively, until, 
finally becoming possessed of certain mining claims at 
Arastraville, he located himself there, constructing an 
arastra, and is now engaged in improving his mining 
property. 



JAMES TANNAHILL. 
Of good Scotch descent, Mr. Tannahill was born in the 
"Land o' Cakes," in July, 1824. As early as 1850, he 
found himself mining on Curtis' Creek, which pursuit he 
followed for a short time, going afterwards to Stockton, 
but again returning in the Fall of '50, and started a store 
at what is now Groveland, but which at that time was 
called Garrote. Continuing assiduously in that business, 
he has ever since maintained agreeable business relations 
with the inhabitants of that section. Until a few years 
since, he had also conducted certain mining operations. 
Married, Christmas, 1859, Miss May A. Dexter, formerly of 
Providence, Rhode Island. Two children; James Alex- 
ander, and Cordelia Agnes. 



MOSES H. HYDE. 
The subject of this sketch first saw the light in Carroll 
County, New Hampshire, where he resided until he passed 
his twentieth year; then, for the next seven years, his loca- 
tion was chiefly in Massachusetts. Then, being smitten 
with the California fever, he joined the grand army whose 
eager faces were turned towards the golden shores of the 



322 HISTORY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 

Pacific, and, taking passage on the steamer John L. Ste- 
phens, he came to Panama. The remainder of this, to him, 
most eventful trip was made in the George Law, arriving 
in San Francisco in 1854. Coming at once to old Tuol- 
umne, he entered into partnership with his brother, in 
ranching, afterwards going into the lumber manufacture. 
Increasing in wealth, Mr. Hyde became successively pro- 
prietor of a sawmill, a lumber yard situated in Sonora, and 
the fine ranch on which he now resides. This ranch, 
familiarly known as the "Hyde Ranch," is situated on Sul- 
livan's Creek, above the Phoenix Reservoir. Besides agri- 
culture, the gentleman has interested himself in mining, in 
consequence of the discovery of a very extensive quartz 
ledge upon his property, which, being prospected, is found 
to be of great value. 



G. F. CULBERTSON. 

Mr. Culbertson, now a prominent citizen of Tuolumne, 
and who has served the County in public offices, was born 
in Salem, Massachusetts. Coming to California in '49, by 
the Cape Horn route, he mined in Mariposa County until 
1851, when he came to Chinese Camp, and there continued 
the same occupation. Five years later he located himself at 
Moccasin Creek, and commenced agricultural and horti- 
cultural pursuits, at which he has succeeded notably. Con- 
tinuing until the present time in that locality, he has 
engaged in the manufacture of wines and brandies of a 
superior quality. In fact, it is held that articles of his 
own make are unexcelled in this State; which fact speaks 
volumes both for Mr. C.'s perseverance and fitness, and 
also for the adaptability of the soils of this region for viti- 
culture. 



HISTORY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 323 

GEEENBURRY C. BAKER. 

Born in Boone County, Missouri, on the 24th of March, 
1845, he there resided until in his twentieth year, when he 
performed the adventurous trip "Across the Plains," with 
a mule team, arriving on this side of the Sierra in the Fall 
of 1864. Sheep-raising in Stanislaus County, and after- 
wards stock-raising and farming in Merced County, for a 
while engrossed his attention, until in 1879 he built a sta- 
tion on the Sonora and Mono Road, about eight miles from 
the summit, known by his name. This establishment he 
has continued to manage up to the present time; in addi- 
tion to which, the hotel at Confidence, of which he is pro- 
prietor, receives a part of his attention. Married at Center 
Mill, in 1873, to Miss Mary E, Carter, he has by her two 
children, Cora M., and John. 



W. S. STONE. 

This gentleman, now a prosperous and valued citizen of 
Tuolumne County, was born in Montgomery County, Mis- 
souri, on the 4th of March, 1830. When he was quite 
young his parents removed southward to Washington 
County, Arkansas, where they followed farming. When 
twenty-one, Mr. Stone was united in marriage to Miss I. 
Fitzgerald, and the following year the young couple 
"crossed the Plains," coming with their ox-teams via Salt 
Lake, arriving in Tuolumne in November, '52, After a 
short time spent in mining in Jamestown, he accepted a 
situation in a sawmill on Sullivan's Creek, remaining so 
employed for two years; then purchasing the ranch now 
owned by Mr. Major, but selling it in 1856, to occupy his 
present beautiful farm, situated in the loveliest of valleys, 
eleven miles from Sonora. The amount of land embraced 



324 HisTORy OF tuolumne county. 

within the ranch is three hundred and twenty acres. Their 
children are five in number, whose names are : O, P., 
Thomas J., George L., Isabelle C, and Ida V. 



A. ABBOTT. 

Born in the city of Hudson, New York, Mr. Abbott left 
for California in the memorable year 1849, on the bark 
"Nautilus." The adventurous passage was made in safety. 
Coming directly to this County, Mr. Abbott spent several 
years in mining, the common occupation of nearly every 
one at that time. With the decay of placer mining, he re- 
tired from that pursuit and entered the pleasanter ways of 
agriculture, devoting himself 'to tilling the kindly soil of 
his pleasant ranch on the North Branch of Sullivan's Creek, 
where he now lives, having surrounded himself with a 
family. 



BEN SOULSBY. 

Is a Pennsylvanian, having been born in Alleghany 
County, of that State, in October, 1840. In 1851, he, to- 
gether with his parents, came to this State, by way of New 
Orleans and Panama. Living first on Sullivan's Creek, the 
family moved thence to Brown's Flat, there remaining until 
the Fall of '53, when they changed their residence to Souls- 
byville, where "Ben" has since resided. Mr. Soulsby was 
the discoverer of the celebrated "Soulsby" mine, a claim 
that has enriched many, but which circumstances compelled 
the discoverer to part with. A veteran prospector, Mr. S. 
still evinces a most excellent judgment in mines, owning 
now an interest in a valuable claim a mile north of Souls- 
byville, which he with his partner are in process of develop- 



HISTORy OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 325 

ing. Possessing also a well improved and valuable farm 
of one hundred and sixty acres, upon which is a tiptop 
residence, the gentleman is well situated to enjoy life and 
to dispense an open-handed hospitality, as 0.II who have 
experienced the latter may testify. Mr. Soulsby and his 
excellent lady have one child, Thomas by name. 



JOSEPH BIXEL. 

The subject of this sketch was born iu Germany on 
December 1, 1818. Here he was raised and educated. He 
emigrated to the United States iu 1849, settling at Cleve- 
land, Ohio. From this place he came to California via the 
Isthmus of Panama, landing iu San Francisco in October, 
1851. He came direct to this county, stopping at James- 
town, where he mined for gold during the Winter of '51-2. 
The following Spring he went to Fresno, remaining there 
until the Fall of that year, and then moved to Merced 
County, where he purchased a farm in 1853. On February- 
8, 1856, he came to Columbia and bought an interest in his 
present brewery, and has been engaged in the manufacture 
of beer. The brewery above mentioned was built by A. 
Bixel, a brother of the subject of this sketch, in 1854, and 
was owned by him until 185G, when Joseph Bixel bought 
an interest, buying the remainder in 18G9. This brewery 
is located at the head of Matelot Gulch, and is a wood 
building 40x60 feet, one story high, the malt-room and 
kiln of brick, one story and basement, 20x80 feet; the fer- 
mentation cellar is 20x60 feet, hewn out of almost solid 
limestone; the floor faced with marble. One large stable 
of wood, carriage-house and dwelling-house, also of wood, 
30x40 feet, and one and a half stories high. Mr. Bixel 
married Anna Maria Dirr. She is a native of Germany. 
Paul, Amelia, Louisa and Arthur are their children. 



326 HISTORY OF TDOLUMNE COUNTY. 



W. A. CAMPBELL. 



The subject of this short narrative is a veteran of the 
Mexican War, having served under Taylor, in his very im- 
portant campaign, belonging to the Tennessee Cavalry. 
After two years and four months of continuous service vyith 
Taylor, he went to Vera Cruz, and was afterwards detailed 
as one of the party that located the forts on the route to 
this side of the continent, returning home at the end of his 
service only to start westward again, traveling to California 
for the second time, in 1849, with a pack train. His first 
occupation in this country was as teamster for the noted 
Sam Brannan, transporting goods from Sacramento to 
Amador County. Later on he came to Calaveras County, 
and thence to Columbia, "The Gem of the Southern Mines," 
as Coffroth styled her. Here he mined three years, and, 
changing his location to Springfield, put in two years more 
with the pick and shovel. At a later date he lived in So- 
nera, exchanging- to Soulsbyville, where he remained until 
1873, when he located upon his present comfortable ranch 
of two hundred acres, on which he farms and raises stock. 



NATHAN A. AKNOLD. 

The reminiscences of the early pioneers and adventurers 
on the Pacific Coast must ever possess a peculiar interest 
for the Californian. Green in their memory will ever 
remain the trials and incidents of early life in this land of 
golden promise. The pioneers of civilization constituted 
no ordinary class of adventurers. Resolute, ambitious 
and enduring, looking into the great and possible future of 
this Western slope, and possessing the sagacious mind to 
grasp true conclusions, and the indomitable will to execute 
just means to obtain desired ends, these heroic pioneers, 



HISTORY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 327 

by their subsequent careers, have proved that they were 
equal to the great mission assigned them — that of carrying 
the liberal institutions and real essences of American civil- 
ization from their Eastern homes and implanting them upon 
the shores of another ocean. Among the many who have 
shown their fitness for the tasks assigned them, none merit 
this tribute to their worth more fully than the subject of 
this sketch, whose portrait appears in this work. He was 
born in Providence, Rhode Island, on September 18, 1832. 
He left his native place in 1851, came to this State via the 
Isthmus of Panama, and landed in San Francisco in July 
of that year. After two days' sojourn in the city, Mr. 
Arnold went to Sacramento, thence to Marysville and to 
Long Bar on the Yuba river, where he engaged board at 
sixteen dollars per week. He bought a claim for thirty 
dollars, worked two weeks and took out seven dollars and 
fifty cents. During the Winter of 1852, he was at Deer 
Creek, and in the Summer of that year he was mining in 
Placer county. In the Fall of 1852, he came to Sonora, in 
this county, with a companion, arriving after dark. They 
lay on the ground, as they supposed, in a field, but on the 
following morning discovered they were in the burying- 
ground. Mr. Arnold continued mining in placer claims for 
many years, meeting with varied success. When placer 
mining was no longer a paying business, he went to the 
mountains east of Columbia, and with others discovered 
and developed the " Kifle " and "Smooth-bore" mines, 
which were very productive. 

In 1878, however, the subject of our sketch found 
himself over eight hundred dollars in debt, with no credit 
and no coin to meet the demands of his creditors, " How 
I was to get the money to pay my debts," said Mr. Arnold, 
" troubled me more than any one knew." Full of pluck 
and energy, however, he started out on a prospecting toui 



828 BISTORT OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 

on May 20, 1879. Going along the western bank of Clark's 
Gulch, weary from looking for a gold-bearing vein, he sat 
down, and, leaning against a little tree, turned over a 
stone with his pick, and, to his astonishment and joy, he 
saw gold on the under edge. This led to the discovery 
of the " Hope " mine, one of the richest in this county, 
and one which enabled Mr. Arnold not only to pay all his 
indebtedness, but has already placed in his hands a snug 
little fortune. On the northern slope of the South Fork 
of the Stanislaus river is his home, nestled among the 
trees, and about midway between the base and apex of a 
lofty mountain. Near by is Clark's Gulch, down which 
runs with fearful turmoil, a little creek, emptying itself into 
the Stanislaus river, and hurrying on to kiss the hem of 
the Pacific ocean . One who is a lover of beautiful scen- 
ery cannot help but admire this home among the moun- 
tains. Mr. Arnold married Rinalda Cordero, and has two 
little girls, whose names are Frances and Sarah. 



C. LOMBARDO. 

Captain Lombardo, one of the prominent quartz miners 
of this County, and the owner of the Louisiana Mine, and 
of other valuable mining properties near by, was born in 
Italy, Going, at an early age, to South America, he con- 
tinued his travels to California, arriving in 1849. Adopting 
mining as a pursuit, the Captain, then as now, prominent 
among his fellow-countrymen in this land, after three 
years passed as a storekeeper in Jamestown and Sonora, in 
1852 entered successfully into "pocket" mining in Bald 
Mountain. After two years of this work he removed to 
Cherokee, in which vicinity he has since remained, giving 
himself up almost wholly to quartz mining, in which his 




•i'lS*^ 




HISTORY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 329 

success has been marked. One of his properties, the 
Louisiana, above mentioned, is regarded as of very great 
value, and is well improved, having on it a first-rate hoist- 
ing works as well as an eight-stamp mill, all driven by 
hydraulic power. 



OWEN FALLON 

Was born in Leland, and^came to the' United States with 
his parents when an infant, settling in Washington County, 
New York. During his boyhood he lived at East Troy, 
West Troy and at Port Jackson, New York. His father 
being a stonecutter, young Fallon learned the trade, work- 
ing at the same at Amsterdam, on the Erie Canal. He 
subsequently moved to New York City, and with his father 
was employed cutting stone for a seawall around the Gov- 
ernment works, at Governor's Island. In the Fall of 
1840, he went to sea on a whaling YOjage, and afterwards 
sailed on a merchantman, which occupations he followed 
until he came to this State on the ship " Ohio," Captain 
Hale, Mr. Fallon being one of the mates. He settled at 
the Mission Dolores, San Francisco, and was employed by 
Elliott More. During the Summer of 1851, he, in com- 
pany with others, went to San Mateo County, cutting wild- 
oat hay for the market. Mr. Fallon returned to the Mis- 
sion, and, in company with Terrence Riley, followed gar- 
dening. Here he was elected Constable, and afterwards 
was appointed on the police force of San Francisco. He 
married Ellen Gregg on Jan. 14, 1854, and in 1856 came 
to this county, settling in Columbia, and engaging in 
mining a while. He purchased the " Maine House," on 
the ground where his present hotel stands, keeping the 
same until it was burned, Aug. 24, 1857. He rebuilt the 



330 HISTORY OF TUOLUMNB COUNTY. 

hotel, and again, on Aug. 27, 1859, the building was de- 
stroyed by fire. He at once erected a brick fire-proof 
building, which now bears the name of the "Fallon 
House," the subject of our sketch being still its proprietor. 
James G. is his only son. 



C. S. PEASE. 

Born in Broome county, New York, in November, 1827, 
he there passed his earlier years, leaving his native State 
for the Pacific Slope in 1851. First mining for two years 
at Rough and Ready, he then returned to the East, where 
he exchanged his state of single-blessedness for that of a 
Benedict. Returning to California in 1855, he engaged in 
mining and teaching school as occasion required, and 
served one term as Superintendent of Common Schools for 
Tuolumne county. In 1865, he moved on his ranch on 
Blanket Creek, where he has resided ever since. Mr. 
Pease's children, seven in number, are Philip M., Ella 
Li., Alice, Alfred, Henry, Edward and Grace. 



-/ J. L. COLES. 

"Jack" Coles, as his many friends love to call him, was 
born on Long Island, New York, but was reared and edu- 
cated in New York City. His early training, which was 
thorough, dealt more particularly with matters relating to 
mechanism and architecture, and of which Mr. Coles is 
unquestionably a master. In the Fall of 1854, he resolved 
to sail for California, and arrived here in the Spring of 
1855. His first halt was at Jamestown, where he very 
soon became associated with a company to work a mine on 
the Tuolumne river, near Jacksonville, and at which he 



HISTORY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 331 

spent his first Summer in California. In the Fall of the 
same year he went to the town of Sonora, and there form- 
ing a copartnership with Mr. Charles Bunnell, soon estab- 
lished a lucrative business in architectural contracting and 
building. They also became interested in many mining 
claims, and were soon surrounded by a large circle of very 
warm friends, "Jack" being ever ready for anything that ' 
would advance the interests of the town, or promote fun, 
and never tardy about paying his full share of all costs, or 
too busy, or hard up, to lend a helping hand in any worthy 
cause. In the Summer of 1859, he became the happy pos- 
sessor of the hand and heart of the youngest daughter of 
the late Mr. Thomas Soulsby, the discoverer and then 
principal owner of the famous Soulsby Quartz Mine. At 
the beginning of the war, Mr. Coles, accompanied by his 
wife and brother, sailed for New York, and very soon after 
their arrival, he was tendered the position of Lieutenant- 
Colonel of a I'egimeut then being raised in New York City, 
which he immediately accepted, and entered upon the 
discharge of his duties. Soon, however, it was ordered 
that their men should be consolidated with another regi- 
ment; but Colonel Jack not being pleased with the order, 
resigned his command. He then hoisted his banner in the 
city of Brooklyn and organized a battery of Light Artil- 
lery, which he was to command. But at this juncture a 
partnership in a very lucrative business presented itself, 
and Jack was persuaded to drop the Colonel and accept 
the merchant, forming the firm of Coles & Ramsey, whole- 
sale dealers in Army Supplies, Washington, D. C, with a 
branch store in Alexandria, Virginia. Mr. Coles, however, 
soon tiling of this tame life, resolved to return to Califor- 
nia, and in the Summer of 1863, when about to start, was 
tendered the command of a regiment to be sent to Arizona 
for Indian service, which he partly accepted, but on his 



332 HISTORY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 

arrival in San Francisco, hearing of the immensely rich 
quartz discoveries in Idaho, resolved to go there. At Owy- 
hee, Idaho Territory, he, with others, formed a company, 
and in tho Summer of 1864, built the well-known " Morn- 
ing Star " Quartz Mill, which is believed to be the first of 
the kind in Idaho Territory, and although costing what 
would now be considered a fabulous sum, all concerned 
reaped a golden harvest. Next we find Mr. Coles located 
again in New York City, a member of the firm of Ramsey, 
Coles & Co., importers and wholesale dealers in white 
goods, laces, hosiery, etc. In the Summer of 1868, they 
dissolved the firm, and Mr. Coles and brother turned their 
attention to inventions, and we find their names appearing 
in man^' places in the Patent Office Reports, as the invent- 
ors of several very valuable and now almost indispensable 
improvements. At this time reports of the fabulously rich 
mines at White Pine, Nevada, caught Jack's eye, and soon 
the monotony of New York became irksome, and in 1869 
we find him located at Mineral Hill, Nevada, vindicating 
the laws of that district as Dejjuty District Attorney, and 
handling a mining property valued at over a million dol- 
lars. Eighteen hundred and seventy-five finds Mr. Coles 
again in New York as President of a large and flourishing 
Ice Comj^any. Eighteen hundred and eight}^ Mr. Coles 
and wife and their loveable little daughter returned to 
Sonora, where they are now hai^jDily living, surrounded by 
many of their old friends. Mr. Coles, throughout his 
eventful and active life, has always shown himself the 
scrupulously honorable gentleman, and enterprising to an 
extent which the average man not only cannot appreciate, 
but cannot understand. Going into many ventures for 
the love of venture and for the sake of doing, he has met 
many reverses, but with a becoming self-confidence and 
command, he immediately recovers himself, and gathering 



HISTORY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 333 

up the wrecks strewn about him, begins again, without loss 
of time or diminution of energy, thereby verifying his 
phrenological chart as written up by Messrs. Fowler & 
Wells — " one of the favored few, created superior to mis- 
fortune. " His career, full as it is with incidents and nota- 
ble phases, is not to be satisfactorily sketched within the 
limits of an article brief as this must necessarily be, and 
here is given only the more salient points of a biography 
which, written out in full, would richly repay the historian. 



H, L. STREET. 

The subject of this sketch, who is one of the pioneers 
of Sonora, was born in Genessee County, New York, on 
May 23, 1823. Prior to the year 1840, his uncle, M. B. 
Street, had taken up a residence in Hancock County, 
Illinois, and the nephew, H. L. Street, persuaded his 
parents to move to that place, which they did in the year 
above mentioned. Here the uncle and father were en- 
gaged in mercantile pursuits. In 1846, the Street families 
emigrated to Johnson County, Arkansas, where they lived 
till Mr. Street's father and trother came to this State via 
Fort Smith, Fort Yuma and San Diego to San Francisco, 
where they arrived November 1, 1849. Here they built a 
canvass house in which they lived till February, 1850; then 
came to this county, passing through San Jose. They 
camped a short time at Jamestown, thence moving to 
Woods' Creek, abont one-half mile above Sonora. Here 
Mr. Street remained till about May, 1850, when he, in con- 
junction with his brother, C. L. Street, i-aised a tent at the 
head of Washington street, in which they opened a store, 
purchasing eight hundred dollars worth of goods in Stock- 
ton, on which they paid four hundred dollars for their 



334 HISTORY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 

transportation to Sonora, Here Mr. Street followed trad- 
ing and mining- until March 15, 1851, then selling out his 
business and returning east by steamer to New York, thence 
to the State of Arkansas. He only remained, however, 
till August, 1851, when he returned to this State, coming 
via New Orleans, bringing his wife, and at once settled in 
Sonora, where he purchased a half interest in his uncle's 
store. Mr. Street continued in trade until ^,1859. A year 
or two thereafter he went to Lewiston, Idaho, there going 
into business, but sold out, returned to Sonora and opened 
a store in 1861, which business he now follows at his place 
on "Washington street. He was appointed Postmaster, in 
1861, and has continued in the office to the present time. 
He married Ascenith, daughter of Dr. McConnell, on Feb- 
ruary 22, 1849. The lady is a native of Kentucky, Charles 
E., their eldest son, was bom on April 17, 1852, and is the 
first white , child born of American parents in Sonora, 
Harlow M. (deceased), and Minnie B., the wife of I. M. 
Kalloch, ai'e the names of their children. 



J. S. CADY 

Was born in Berkshire County, Massachusetts, on Feb- 
ruary 19, 1826, and was there raised and educated. In 
September, 1849, he went to the State of Wisconsin, where 
he remained one year, and returned to his native home to 
pay a visit, before starting for California. He chose the 
Nicaragua route, taking passage on the steamer North 
America, in February, 1852, and had the ill-fortune to suf- 
fer shipwreck on the Mexican coast, thereby retarding his 
arrival in San Francisco until May 18, of that year. He at 
once proceeded to Sonora, where he arrived on the 22nd of 
May. He was engaged in mining until January, 1854, and 



HISTORY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 335 

then was employed as a clerk for Gorham & Co., which 
position he filled until January, 1855, then went to Colum- 
bia, where he remained until going East in 1855. In 1858, 
he again came to this county, and engaged in mining on 
Table Mountain, afterwards opening a store in Sonora on 
April 23, 1860. His business then, as now, was composed 
principally of the sale of paints, oils, house furnishing 
hardware and wall paper. Mr. Cady's store is located on 
the corner of Washington and Dodge streets. He married 
Mary M. Curtiss, a native of Massachusetts, on September 
5,1855. 



W. J. GOKHAM. 

This well-known citizen of Columbia was born in Canada 
East, on April 1, 1837, being raised and educated there 
and in the United States, "which is accounted for from the 
fact of his residence being close to the line separating our 
Government from the dominions of England's Qaeen. He 
left Canada in 1866 for this State, came via the Isthmus of 
Panama, and landed in San Francisco in August of that 
year. On the last day of that month he arrived in this 
county, and settled at Sawmill Flat. In 1868 he came to 
Columbia, leased"'Fallon's Hotel, and bought the furniture 
thereto attached, and was the proprietor of that hostelry 
for eighteen months, when he sold out, and opened a 
saloon on Main street, but only remained in that business 
about one and a half years. Two years ago he was ap- 
pointed Deputy Sheriff, and about nine months since be- 
came Constable. Mr. Gorham learned the carpenter's 
trade when young, and has since been engaged in it as one 
of his occupations. He married Eliza Jane Wilson, a na- 
tive of Huntington County, Canada East, on June 9, 1860. 



336 HISTORY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 

LOUIS LEVY. 

The subject of this sketch is a native of Sabine Parish, 
Louisiana, and was born on July 4, 1849. In 1852, his 
parents emigrated to this State via the Isthmus, and settled 
at Sonora. In 1853, they located at Columbia, where 
Louis was taught the common branches of learning at the 
public schools, and finished his education at a private 
school in San Francisco. After completing his education, 
he returned to Columbia, went into business with his father, 
and after a lapse of years he opened a store of general 
merchandise on his own account, and has since pursued 
that occupation. On January 15, 1877, he was appointed 
Postmaster at Columbia, which position he held until Oc- 
tober 1, 1881, when he moved to Sonora, where he now 
resides, now occupying the chair of Chief Councilor of the 
Order of Chosen Friends, and is also Chief Patriarch of 
Bald Mountain Encampment, I. O. O. F. Mr. Levy 
married Nellie Kohler, on August 23, 1880. She is a na- 
tive of New Zealand, but of English parentage. 



HENRY KEPHART. 
Mr. Kephart began this life in Huntingdon County, 
Pennsylvania, on the twenty-lifth of August, 1821 . He 
was brought vip to habits of industry and application, be- 
ing set to learn the trade of forgeman — a trade which he 
followed in various parts of his native state until 1848, 
when he went to Iowa and from there to Indiana; there 
working at his trade until the breaking out of the ' ' Gold 
Fever," when in the Spring of '50, he started for the Pa- 
cific Coast across the Plains, arriving in Georgetown, El 
Dorado County. Travelling through the difterent mining 
districts until the fall of '51, he then settled at Shaw's 



HISTORY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 337 

Flat, there to follow placer digging for three years, at the 
end of which time he removed to Campbell's Flat, and 
from there to Blanket Creek, and a year later to Turnback 
Creek, where he has since remained, pursuing the occupa- 
tion of a miner, with the exception of short periods in other 
localities. 



F. J. GROSS 

Was born in Georgetown, D. C, where he resided [until 
coming to this State, via Panama, in 1859. He came 
direct to Tuttletown, and commenced the butcher business, 
continuing the same until 1863, and then engaged in min- 
ing. About two years ago, he purchased a saloon at Tut- 
tletown, which he is now conducting. 



C. H. COLBY 

Was born iu Ellsworth, Hancock County, Maine, on 
September 10, 1833. He received his education in the 
common schools of that place. He went to Boston, and 
from that port sailed for California via the Isthmus of Pan- 
ama, landing in San Francisco on September 25, 1856. 
He came direct to this County, settled at Springfield and 
went to digging gold, following that business for ten years, 
when he moved on his present ranch, north from Sj) ring- 
field, where he has since resided. He married Alvira J. 
Cushman, a native of St John's, New Brunswick. 



JUDGE 0. P. GALE. 

This pioneer settler of California and Tuolumne County 
was born in Hadley, Hamj)shire County, Massachusetts. 
He received his primary education at the common schools. 



338 HISTORY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 

and his academic learning at the Academy at Westfield* 
He first moved to Wayne County, N. Y. ; thence to Picka- 
way County, Ohio; thence to Hampton, Mo., and finally to 
the States of Texas and Louisiana, coming from the latter 
place to California, and arriving in Monterey in June, 
1849. He at once came to this county and settled at 
Jamestown, where he ai-rived in July of that year. He 
mined at that place and on the Tuolumne River, and at 
Angel's Camp until 1850, when he settled on his present 
place near Tuttletown. In March, 1853, he came into 
possession by purchase of the Jackson Flat Ditch, and the 
letting of water to miners has been his principal business. 
Mr. Gale has, however, quite a large vineyard and wine 
cellar, the latter being well filled with a vintage of his own 
growing. 



JOHN H. HUNTER 

Was born in Greencastle, Putnam County, Indiana, on 
May 12, 1829. When six months old his parents took him 
to Vermillion County, in that State, and afterwards to 
Paris, Edgar County, Illinois. Mr. Hunter went to Mis- 
souri, where he remained one year, then crossed the Plains 
to this State, arriving in August, 1852. He came to Co- 
lumbia, January 20, 1858, where he has continuously lived, 
and followed the occupation of a miner. 



W. J. BECKWITH. 

The subject of this sketch was born in Kent County, New 
Brunswick, British North America, on February 8, 1826, 
where he was educated. His father was a farmer, owning 
sawmills and manufacturing lumber; and at an early age 



HISTORY OP TUOLUMNE COPNTY. 339 

Mr. Beckwith chose the occupation of a lumberman, that 
region of country abounding in forests of fine timber, 
■which, being manufactured into lumber, rolls to market 
like an endless tide. In 1849, Mr. Beckwith moved to the 
State of Maine, and on July 5, 1851, left Calais and came 
via the Isthmus of Panama to this State, landing in San 
Francisco on August 19 of that year. He remained in the 
city until September 15, then came to this county and set- 
tled near Sonora, and mined on the South Fork of the 
Stanislaus River. In the Spring of 1852 he started for the 
Northern Mines, bat went no farther than Stockton, where 
he remained for two years, then went to the American 
Eiver, and mined at Rattlesnake Bar. He returned to this 
County in the Sj^ring of 1855, and settled on the farm he 
now owns, near Mountain Pass, where he has maintained 
a "continuous residence. Mr. Beckwith married, for his 
his first wife, Martha Wadsworth, a native of New York 
State. His second wife was Elizabeth Agnes Dunn, and 
was born in Dublin, Ireland. By this union they have: 
Robert B., Bertha C. , and Elizabeth A. 



DR. R. M. LAMPSON. 

The subject of this sketch was born in South Hero, 
Grand Isle County, Vermont, December 28, 1832. He 
was prepared for College at the C^tleton Academy, and 
grew up to manhood among the green hills of that noble 
little State. In 1852 he embarked on the ship "Race 
Hound," which coming round the Horn, brought him in 
safety to the El Dorado, then so j^rominent in the world's 
eyes. Going to Long's Bar on Yuba River, he made his 
initial experimenta in mining. A few months later he was 
settled at Montezuma, there to wield the miner's pick and 



340 HISTORY OF TDOLUMNE COUNTY. 

shovel for the next five years. Bidding farewell then to 
mining, he entered his present occupation, medicine, with 
constant success, being now, as for many years past, one 
of the ablest practitioners in all the adjacent country; his 
services being sought far and near. The gentleman's tal- 
ents have also commanded respect in other directions, not- 
ably politics. Elected State Senator, be has twice repre- 
sented the county in that capacity, and in the Senate, as 
well as in the late Constitutional Convention, his abilities 
and his principles have alike commended him to the admi- 
ration and confidence of his constituents. 

Married in Stockton to Mrs. S. F. Graves, the couple 
have two children, Misses Alice and Lily. 



W. J. SMITH. 

This gentleman is of English descent, having been born 
in Somersetshire, in the southern part of England, on No- 
vember 20, 1834. His parents removed to New York in 
1849, settling in Cortland County, in that State. In 1853 
Mr. Smith, then a youth of nineteen, started, in company 
with W. P. Smith, his brother, for California, via Panama, 
arriving in March of that year. Settling at Springfield, 
the twain commenced mining, hauling their gold-bearing 
dirt about half a mile to a spring, where it was washed.- 
In 1862 Mr. Smith mined near Soulsbyville, remaining so 
employed until 1866, when he, together with his brother, 
located in their present situation near Cherokee, and have 
been engaged in mining ever since. Among other proper- 
ty possessed by Mr. Smith was an interest in the " Masto- 
don " Ledge, sold to a Boston Company in 1880; and an 
interest in a mine near Summersville, which he still retains. 
At present, the gentleman is engaged in gold extraction 
through the medium cf his arastra, which he constantly 
operates. 



HISTORY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 341 

J. H. SMITH. 

Mr. Smith, who is mentioned above as a brothei of W. H. 
Smith, was born December 17, 1824, in Somersetshire, 
England. Coming to New York, May 1845, and remaining 
in Cortland County until 1853, when he came to this State. 
Mining at Springfield for a time, he went back to New 
York for a while, afterwards spending four years in Iowa, 
as a farmer. The attractions of the " Sunset Land " were 
too great, however, and he pulled up stakes in 1859, j^d 
came across the plains, with his wife. In 1862, they went 
to Soulsbyville, where they resided until 1866; Mr. Smith 
working as a miner. At that date he removed to Cherokee, 
where he now remains. The brothers were owners of the 
" Mastodon" Ledge, mentioned as having been sold in 
1880 to a company of Boston capitalists. Mr. Smith is 
still engaged to some extent in mining affairs, but carries 
on, besides, some farming operations. His wife, above 
spoken of, was Miss C. A. Barker, to whom he was mar- 
ried in 1850. 



EUGENE MULLER. 

Born in the Palatinate of the Rhine, a Province of Bav- 
aria, in 1834, Mr. Muller came to California in 1858, and 
made his home in Tuolumne County. He became inter- 
ested in the manufacture of beer, ^ for which purpose he 
connected himself with the Garrote Brewery, and has car- 
ried it on ever since, with the exception of a single year, 
spent in Nevada. This property he purchased in 1865, of 
F. Stachler, and throughout his connection therewith has 
done credit to himself in the production of an excellent ar- 
ticle of beer— the prominent and healthful beverage of the 
times. 



842 HI8T0KY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTT. 

W. D. GIBBS. 
A native of Butler County, Alabama, Mr. Gibbs spejjt 
a portion of his boyhood on the old homestead, going to 
Texas with his parents when nine years of age. / In 1849, 
after spending the intervening years in the pleasant pur- 
suits of farming, he cam6 across the Plains, a route so 
many were then taking with such hardships, and located 
at-Hawkin's Bar, then in the zenith of its importance as a 
mining camp. Passing the succeeding winter at Big Oak 
Flat, he returned in the ensuing year to the Tuolumne 
River, at various points on which he mined until 1852, 
when going down to the lower country, he engaged in farm- 
ing near La Grange, remaining occupied in that pursuit 
during the six following years. Locating himself next at 
Summersville, he has followed his favorite agricultural 
pursuits up to the present time. Having now a capital 
farm of one hundred and sixty acres, well cultivated and 
improved, he is able to enjoy the ease that his wanderings 
have made essential to him. Marrying Mary F. Summers, 
at La Grange, in 1853, 4h^ large number of fifteen children 
have been born to them, of whom twelve are ~uow Hying.' 
There names are as follows: George J., Laura E., Flora 
E.. James L., L. Dora. , Francis M., William P., Henry J., 
Rosa v., Walter A., Jessie J., and Ada. 



JOSEPH POWNALL, M. D. 

-Is a native of Hackettstown County, New Jersey, and 
was born on August 8, 1818. His primary education was 
received in that town, after which, at the age of nineteen, 
he commenced the study of medicine with Dr. William 
Rea, and in the Spring of 1841 attended a course of lec- 
tures at the College of Physicians and Surgeons at New 



HISTORY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 343 

York City, followed by another course during the Sum- 
mer and -Fall at Pittstield, Massachusetts; then returned 
and entered the Medical Department of the University 
of the City of New York, at its first session in the Fall 
and Winter of 1841-2, from which he graduated on the 
9th day of March, A. D. 1842. After a visit to his home 
of six months, he returned to the city for a month or 
so, then went to Savannah, in Georgia; remained there a 
short time and settled in Laurens County in that elate. 
After a ^ix -months' residence there he moved to Mi- 
canopy, Alachua County, Florida, remaining until about 
July 1, 1846, when he went to New Orleans, thence to 
Matamoras and Monterey, in Mexico, returning to New 
Orleans about January 1st, 1847. He remained there until 
September, 1848, then moved to Keachie, De Soto Parish, 
Louisiana. ' On the 28th of March, 1849, he, in company with 
Capt. I. G. Messec of Gilroy, and fifty others, started for 
this State, taking the El Paso route, and arrived in Cali- 
fornia about tlie 20th of July of that year. The Doctor 
first settled 4n Mariposa, the same Fall going to Stockton, 
and engaging in " packing " to the mines for a short time, 
and then returned to Mariposa. From" there he came to 
Big Oak Flat in this county, on March 18, 1850. In the 
Winter of 1850-1 he was engaged in mining at Quartz 
Mountain, near Sonora. About February, 1851, he went 
to the northern mines, where he remained till January, 
1852, and returned to this county, settling in Columbia. 
He acquired an interest in the Tuolumne Water Company 
in January, 1852, and in 185G was elected its Secretary, 
and is now Secretary, Treasurer and Superintendent, as 
well as being one of the Board of Directors. On March 
10, 1857, Dr. Pownall married Mary C. Newell, Joseph 
B., aged 24 years, and Lucy A. H., aged 22 years, are their 
children. 



344 HISTORY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 

r Among the Doctor's lively recollections is an account of 
an affray between white men and Indians, which took place 
at Big Oak Flat in very early times, and which has been 
previously mentioned in this work. This account is given 
nearly in the gentleman's own words, he having been an 
eye witness. 

When the Doctor was coming to the Flat from a gulch 
beyond, he witnessed a scene of blood,Jon the 5th of June, 
1850, at a place called Savage's Old Camp. A small tribe 
.''^^'ludians were encamped there, and on that day the 
* <l3hief , Lotario, and a few chosen warriors, becoming a little 
more fuddled than would be considered genteel in the 
higher walks of life, concluded to have a row with some 
Americans encamped there. Words with th^m not being 
quite potent enough, bows and arrows were called into 
requisition, and the melee became general, and as he came 
from work he saw the whole tribe of warriors, squaws and 
pappooses, taking French leave of their heretofore' quiet 
abode, and making tracks for parts unknown^ amid an 
accompaniment of howls, shrieks and lamentations, that 
would have done no discredit to a pack of hungry wolves. 
When coming in he saw the Chief and several others 
lying dead, and another badly wounded. One unfortunate 
American, named Bose, was so badly wounded with arrows 
that he died in about an hour. 



P. M. TRASK. 

This gentleman, one of Tuolumne's old settlers, was 
born in Franklin County, Maine, on May 9, 1829. At the 
common schools in Franklin County he was educated, and 
was raised in agricultural pursuits. He came to California 
via the Isthmus of Panama, and arrived in San Francisco 
in July, 1852. He came direct to this county, first settling 



HISTORY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 345 

at Columbia, where he mined for about eight years. In 
1860 he settled on his farm, located one mile north from 
Columbia. He has planted a vineyard of about twelve 
acres, which is now in bearing. Some of his grapes are sold 
in the market, and others are manufactured into wine. 
He has also planted about three acres of fruit trees, which 
are now in bearing. Fruit and hay are the princij)al pro- 
ducts of the ranch. Mr, Trask married Susan M. Pierce, 
on September 19, 1854. She is a native of Penobscot 
County, Maine. They have three living children, Greorge 
M., Florence M. and Clara J. One deceased, Charles A. 



EDWIN H. CLOUGH. 

Edwin H. Clough was born in Sonora, February 11, 
1 854. His early boyhood was passed amidst the beauties 
and grandeur of Tuolumne's everlasting hills at a period 
when '/ the first low wash of civilization," had begun to 
flow back from her borders — a period of aftermath, when 
the mad race for wealth that seemed inexhaustible had 
settled to a spasmodic search in which hope did not spring 
eternal iii the prosj)ector's breast. It was a boyhood 
among men whose names and deeds are prominent in the 
history of the State and Coast. The impression which 
these surroundings made upon his mind have already 
borne fruit in graphic delineations of the life and character 
of this section of California. Mr. Clough is the eldest son 
of James Perry Clough, at one time County Assessor of 
Tuolumne, and subsequently associated with Jesse Hanson 
in the stationery business in Sonora. He was a grandson 
of Luke Wheelock, a well-known j)ioneer of the county. 
In 1863 his parents removed to San Francisco, where he 
attended the public schools until 1871, when he entered 



346 HISTORY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 

upon the career of journalism as a reporter for the Chronicle, 
He was afterwards employed on the Gall, was the first city 
editor of the Evening Post^ and subsequently took a posi- 
tion as city editor of the Sacramento Bee. In 1875, in 
partnership with W. H. Roberts, Mr. Clough purchased the 
Union Democrat, published at Sonora. During two years 
he acted as editor of this journal, finally disposing of his in- 
terest to Judge C. H. Randall. During the legislative ses- 
sions of 1880-81, Mr. Clough reported the business of the 
Legislature for the Sacramento Bee, contributing to the 
columns of that paper a series of satirical and burlesque 
sketches descriptive of the scenes, episodes and actors of 
the session. At the close of the " hundred days," Mr. 
Clough, assisted by Hugh J. Mohan and John P. Cosgrove, 
published a volume of "pen pictures" of senators, as- 
semblymen and State officers. The authors wrote without 
fear or favor, and the result was a fair exposition of the 
nature and motives of the men of whom they wrote. Mr* 
Clough was city editor of the Stockton Indejyendent until 
April, 1881, when he was engaged on the Evening Tribune 
of Oakland, where he is at present city editor. While 
connected with the Union Democrat, in 1876, he began the 
publication, in the Argonaut, of a series of sketches and 
short stories based upon scenes, incidents and characters 
native to Tuolumne and the adjacent mountain counties. 
Among his best known productions are " The Bad Man of 
Bodie," "A Singed Cat," "The Man From Arizona," 
"Chispa," "Ah Choy — Barbarian," " Sing Lee — Prose- 
lyte," and " The Pard's Epistles," the latter creating wide- 
spread comment on account of the keen satire and broad 
humor which they contained. The quaint philosophy and 
childlike simplicity of "James Snaggleby, Esq.," of Raw- 
hide Flat, and the ostentation, hypocrisy and sham of the 
people among whom he fell and who fleeced him merci- 



HISTORY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 347 

lessly, won for the author a fame that extended beyond 
the borders of the Pacific Coast. In December, 1877, Mr. 
Clough married Miss Llewella H. Pierce, also a native of 
Tuolumne, and the daughter of Llewellyn Pierce, one of 
Tuolumne's oldest pioneers. Since his marriage he has 
resided almost continuously in Oakland, where he has 
engaged iu literary and general newspaper work. He 
is still young, and with fine natural advantages and the 
encouragement of past success gives brilliant promise of 
achieving a proud eminence in the lengthening list of 
Tuolumne's favorite sons. 



EDMOND PAESONS 

Was born iu Greenville County, Virginia, on December 
25, 1831. When about eighteen years old he went to 
Shelby County, Tenn., where he completed his apprentice- 
ship to the carjienter's trade. In 1852, he came to this 
State, via Memphis and the Isthmus, and arrived in San 
Francisco on the 23rd of December of that year. He 
went to lone City, Amador County, where he commenced 
mining. After three months he moved to Volcano, in that 
county, where he followed the same occupation as before, 
together with that of his trade. Here he married Mary 
Jane Bradford, December 6, 1855. She is a native of Mis- 
souri. July 15, 1856, they moved to this county, settling 
on Woods' Creek, in Saw Mill Flat. In 1861, he went to 
Mariposa County, but in the following year returned to the 
Flat. The Montana gold excitement took him to that coun- 
try in 1864, but he came back to hia old home in the same 
year. In 1868, he located in Columbia, and in 1872, set- 
tled in Sonora, where he now lives. Mr. Parsons was 
twice elected Supervisor of this county, and was Deputy 



348 HISTOKY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 

Sheriff under Sheriff David F. Baxter. He is now one of 
the "City Fathers" of Sonora. Charles R., (now a resi- 
dent of Sacramento), Nettie, William D., Lottie, Mary, 
Lillie, and Edmond are the names of his living children. 



JAMES BELL. 

Mr. Bell, whose portrait appears in this work, Avas born 
in Rutherford County, North Carolina, Sept. 29, 1820. 
When seven years old his parents removed to Dyer County, 
Tennessee, and soon after took up a residence in Carroll 
County, in the same State. There Mr. Bell was educated, 
and taught in agricultural pursuits. In 1841, the family 
moved to Massac County, Illinois, thence to Kentucky, set- 
tling at Smithland, where the father died. Previous to 
this time, Mr. Bell had learned the carpenter's trade, and 
here apprenticed himself to that of a mill-wright. On 
October 20, 1847, he married in Terre Haute, Indiana, Ma- 
rietta Smith, who was born at Maple Hill, near that place. 
In 1852, Mr. Bell, with his wife, left Smithland for this 
State, coming via Nicaragua, and in company with his 
brother, Andrew N. Bell, arrived in Sonora, this county, 
November 20, 1852. James Bell, in company with his 
brother Thomas, erected the i^resent Court House, as well 
as other buildings in Sonora. On January 9, 1854, Mr. 
Bell formed a partnership with Heslep Bros, for the pur- 
pose of constructing and operating a barley mill. Prior 
to this time there had been built a saw-mill on Woods' 
creek, west from Sonora, and where Mr. Bell's flour mill 
now stands. This saw-mill was torn down, and on the site 
a barley mill was erected. This enterprise proved a finan- 
cial failure, and the parties erected a grist-mill on the 
same ground, completing the structure in August, 1854. As 



HISTORY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 349 

will be seen by referring to the general history in this 
work, Joseph Heslep was murdered in 1855, but the part- 
nership of Heslep Bros. & Bell continued until December, 
1859, when Mr. Bell became sole proprietor, which he has 
continuously maintained to the present time. Many im- 
provements have been made on the mill, until it is now 
recognized as one of the prime features of industry in 
Tuolumne county. In 1861, Mr. Bell invested largely in 
wheat, and the rise in price after the purchase made him 
quite a fortune. With a portion of the gains made in this 
wheat speculation he, in company with his wife, visited the 
World's Fair in London, in 1862, taking also a trip through 
the old countries. Soon after their return, Mrs. Bell's 
health began to fail, and she died on October 7, 1869. 
AVhen her spirit had winged its flight where angels dwell, 
a grave was prepared in the home for the dead on the sum- 
mit of one of the eastern bluffs that overlook the city of 
Sonora, into which her mortal remains were lowered by 
kindly hands. As her friends stood around the open 
receptacle of the dead, more than one was seen to weep 
over the earthly departure of one they had learned to love. 
Mr. Bell has since erected a tomb on the spot where she 
was buried, and the remains of her who left her Eastern 
home, parents, friends, all that was dear to her girlhood's 
memory, to join her husband in coming to this coast, is 
now sepultured within its spacious walls. The tomb which 
Mr. Bell has erected in the Masonic Cemetery, the beauties 
of which cannot fully be aj^preciated until seen, is a 
worthy tribute to the memory of so good a woman. Mr. 
Bell's children are John and Charles. 



WILLIAM MANSFIELD. 

Mr. Mansfield was born in Providence County, Rhode 
Island, on November 3, 1829. He left his native State 



850 HISTORY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 

and sailed from New York City on tlie stermer Ohio, in 
December, 1851, coming via the Isthmus of Panama, and 
landing in San Francisco from the " Golden Gate," in Janu- 
ary, 1852^ his brother Jared Mansfield and other friends com- 
ing with him from Ehode Island. Mr. Mansfield came direct 
to Sonora, but only remained a short time, finally settling 
at Camj)o Seco, where he was engaged in mining. In 
June, 1852, he moved to Columbia, bought an interest in 
the Tuolumne County Water Company, and was appointed 
one of the collectors for the company, and has held the 
position for twenty-six j^ears. He married S. A. Bert, a 
native of Providence, Rhode Island, and who was born 
June 3, 1838. Anna A., William B., Lillie P., Mary E., and 
Fannie Rebecca, are the names of their children. 



FORBES Mcpherson. 

This old pioneer of Tuolumne County was born in 
Scotlandj^October 11, 1822, When about one year old, his 
parents emigrated to the United States, and settled in 
Genessee County, New York, where their son was raised 
and educated, and where he maintained a permanent 
residence until he came to this State, via Panama, landing 
in San Francisco on January 1, 1852. He came to this 
county the following February, and settled at Sonora, 
where he mined, and worked at his trade of carpenter 
and joiner. In 1853, he took up a residence at Sawmill 
Flat, and during his entire residence there, his occupa- 
tion was that of a miner. In June, 1876, he moved to 
Columbia, and in company with Mr. Hilton opened a 
grocery store on Jackson street, where ihej have since 
been doing business. Married Matilda Parsons, who is a 
native of Genessee County, State of New York. 



HISTORY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 351 

JOHN WALKER, M. D., 

One of the pioneer settlers of this county, was born in 
Wilmington, New Hanover County, North Carolina, on 
March 26, 1825. He left New York City on December 1, 
1849, taking passage on the steamer " Panama," Capt. 
Bailey, coming via Panama, and arrived in San Francisco 
in January, 1850. After taking a trip to Stockton, and 
through Calaveras county, he returned to San Francisco, 
thence going to Sonora, where he arrived some time dur- 
ing the Fall of 1850. During the Doctor's residence here 
he has been engaged in the practice of his profession, 
and has also interested himself in mines and mining, to- 
gether with inventing machinery whereby gold may be 
the better extracted from the quartz. This plain state- 
ment of a few facts is all the writer is allowed to give 
of a busy and extremely useful and valuable life. 



I. J. POTTER. 

This old settler of Tuolumne is a native of New York 
City, where he was born on September 21, 1827. When 
three years old, his parents moved to Philadelphia, Pa., 
where he received his primary education at the public 
schools, graduating at the Central High School. He came 
to this State in company with Jarvis Louderbick and 
family, on the ship " Levant," and arrived in San Fran- 
cisco on September 15, 1849. On October 5th, following, 
he arrived in this county, and went to mining at Swett's 
Bar, remaining there until 1853. From this place he moved 
to and mined in Gold Springs, until October, 1861, when 
he settled in Sonora, accepting the position of Deputy 
Clerk of Tuolumne County, under Clerk R. E, Gardner. 
In September, 1873, he was elected County Clerk, and has 
been his own successor to the present time. 



352 HISTORY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 

JOHN JOLLY. 

■^ This old settler is a native of the city of "York, the seat 
of Yorkshire, England, and was born June 13, 1823. He 
emigrated to the United States, sailing from Liverpool 
April, 1849, in the ship "Ajax," Captain Adams, com- 
mander, as the second ship to leave England for the Cali- 
fornia gold fields. On arriving in California, he mined on 
Woods' creek, and in Aj)ril, 1850, moved to his present 
place of residence at Gold Springs. Mr. Jolly was one of 
a company of ten who went to dam and mine the Stanis- 
laus river, at the junction of the South Fork and main 
river, but the high water swept away the dam, and, nearly 
penniless, he, in company with a friend, went to mining at 
Gold Springs. A company commenced to mine on the 
ranch where Mr. Jolly now lives, and by dint of persua- 
sion, induced him and his partner to join them and assist 
to build a ditch, and to appropriate the water from Gold 
Springs to their mines in Sandy Gulch. A large cabin was 
erected where Mr. Jolly's house now stands, and it was 
known in the early days as the "Fort." Mr. Jolly has 
bought out all other interests in the land and water rights, 
and is now the sole owner. He married on the 4th of 
Aj)ril, 1857, Amelia Moore, who was born in New York 
City, Feb. 20, 1835. Their children are Amelia, Hattie, 
Emma, Laura, John, Elenor and Carrie. 



W. N. HAKKIS. 

The subject of this narrative was born in Bedford 
County, Virginia, on June 1, 1820. He went to the State 
of Georgia, thence to Charleston, South Carolina, and to 
New York City, and coming to this State via the Isthmus, 
arrived in San Francisco July 17, 1850. He proceeded to 



HISTORY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 353 

Marysville, and from thence to Opliir, or Oroville, and 
did some prospecting on the Cape Fear claim. He then 
came to this county in December, 1850, locating at Shaw's 
Flat, where he worked at placer mining-, as well as in 
other localities, until coming to Jamestown in the Fall 
of 1862, where he has since lived. He is the owner of 
the "Little Gem" mine, on which there is a ten-stamp 
mill. This mine is situated about one mile west from 
Jamestown. A little farther to the north is the Alabama, 
also owned by Mr. Harris, which mine is one of the best 
in the county. There is a forty stamp mill on it which is 
kept running night and day, pouring into the hands of 
its owner a golden treasure from an inexhaustible vein. 
Mr. Harris married Mrs. Clara A. Hensley on October 9, 
1871. Her living children by a former marriage are: 
William F., Ellen L. and Edward. James was killed at 
the Alabama mine, Feb. 22, 1882. The surname of these 
children is Hensley. 

J. B. LATIMER. 

From the " "Wooden Nutmeg" State, Mr. Latimer hails, 
dating his birth from the 30th day of September, 1818, 
and claiming New London County as his home. Emi- 
grating from Connecticut to the State of New York, he 
settled in Suffolk County, when he was twenty-one, and 
followed farming as an occupation, for five years, returning 
to his old home in Connecticut at the end of that time. 
In 1849, getting a severe attack of the gold fever, he joined 
a company of twenty adventurous spirits, who, clubbing- 
resources, bought a schooner called the " Alfred," and 
boldly set sail for San Francisco, and, contrary to prob- 
ability, came in safety, passing through the Straits of 
Magellan. Arriving in the new metropolis of the coast, 



354 HISTOEr OF tuolumne countt. 

Mr. Latimer's first venture was in hotel keeping, but un- 
fortunately the fire of '52 swept away his all, and proceed- 
ing then to Chili Camp, he there mined for a short time 
and afterwards opened a store in company with F. Bryant. 
His next venture, taking place in the Fall of 1852, was the 
establishment of a sawmill on the site of his present prop- 
erty near Sonora; which, however, proved but of temporary 
value, as all the timber was speedily cut down. Mr. 
Latimer now possesses a tract of three hundred and twenty 
acres, mostly under cultivation. 



J. HALL, 

Who is one of California's pioneers, was born in London, 
England, on the 25th of September, 1816. He arrived in San 
Francisco in the ship " Brooklyn," on the 12th of August, 
1849. He at once jjroceeded to Mokelumne Hill, where 
he was engaged in mining, previous to his coming to So- 
nora, in December, 1849. He went to New York, but 
returned in 1850, and opened a store, and has followed 
mercantile pursuits in Sonora ever since. 



GEORGE WEIGHT. 

Bonnie Scotland is the place of Mr. Wright's nativity, 
and he was born May 9, 1824. On the 7th of February, 
1849, he left Edinburgh for London, leaving the latter 
j)lace on March 1st of that year, having engaged his pas- 
sage in the bark St. George, of London, the first ship 
which left that port for San Francisco, and which arrived 
at the latter place on October 12, 1819. Having learned 
the cabinet and chair maker's trade, in the old country, he 
was able to get work as a carpenter, at $12 per diem; after- 



HISTORY OF TUOLUMXE COUNTY. 355 

wards engaging with the propiietors of the Delmonico 
Hotel as their private carpenter, working until they failed 
in the Spring of 1850. In March he went into the red- 
woods at Corte Madera, to get out lumber for wharfing, 
and there was burned out, leaving there about the end of 
April, for San Francisco. Left the latter place, May 1st, 
in a ship's long-boat, bound for the diggings in Tuolumne 
County, in company with John Wallace and James Willson, 
and arrived in Sonora May 6, 1850, to saw lumber to 
be used for building purposes. In July of that year, he 
went to Sullivan's Bar, remaining until the following Fall, 
when he moved to Campo Seco. Upon the 28th of June, 
1851, he left the latter place for Summit Pass, as he had 
enrolled himself as a member of the Tuolumne County 
Water Company, who were to make a ditch for mining pur- 
poses, and was actively employed by that company eighteen 
consecutive years, and has been a member of that company 
thirty years and ten months. He now resides on his ranch, 
south of Springfield. Mr. Wright married Mary Ann Mer- 
ritt, March 29, 1864, and has a family of four boys and four 
girls. 



W. E. EICHELROTH, M. D. 

The subject of this memoir was born in Schwara, i^rinci- 
pality of Reuss, Germany, on May 31, 1824. He received 
his academic education in his native country, and, studying 
medicine, received therefor his diploma. In 1846 he came 
to the United States, and settled in Carbon County, Penn- 
sylvania, where he resided two years, and then moved to 
Brookville, Indiana, thence to Burlington, Iowa, where he 
l^racticed medicine, leaving Burlington in 1851, for Cali- 
fornia, He crossed the Plains, and after spending the 
Winter of 1851-2 in Salt Lake City, came on to this State, 



356 HISTORY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 

and settled at TaylorsYille, Plumas County. Here he 
engaged in farming and mining, as well as practicing his 
profession, and had for partner in farming and mining the 
celebrated pioneer Peter Lassen. The Doctor afterwards 
moved to Marysville, but remained there only a short time, 
going thence to Foster's Bar, on the Yuba River, thence to 
North San Juan, Nevada County, and in 1851 settled in 
Carson City. He joined the Major Ormsby party, as its 
surgeon, and went out to fight the Indians, but was for- 
tunate enough to be one of the survivors of the ill-fated 
expedition. He next settled at Placerville, El Dorado 
County, and was in charge of the County Hospital there, 
and was elected County Coroner. In 1863, he moved to 
Aurora, Nevada. In 1866 he came to Sonora, and in 1870 
was elected to the Lower House of the Legislature, serving- 
one term. He is is now in charge of the County Hospital, 
which position he has held for the past seven years. He 
married Frances, daughter of Calhoun Colwell, on May 1, 
1850. Mrs. Jennie Eooney, Lilian, Frederick, Frank, and 
Paul^ are the names of their children. 



.DANIEL ERASER 

Was born in Pictou County, Nova Scotia, in 1832. He 
came to the United States and settled in Boston, Massa- 
chusetts, in 1848, thence going to Bath, Sagadahoc County, 
Maine, in 1851. There he resided, until, coming to this 
State, in 1860, he took passage on the steamer "Ariel" to 
Panama, thence on the steamer "Golden Age" to San 
Francisco, where he arrived in August of that year. On 
the 25th of that month he came to this County, settling at 
Columbia, where he has since resided. Here he mined for 
about six months, and then (on April 1, 1861) was appointed 



HISTORY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 357 

Agent for the New England Water Company, which posi- 
tion he has held down to the present time. Mr. Eraser 
married Rebecca S. Kelly, in Bath, Maine, on Ma}^ 23, 
1860, and has had seven children, six of whom are now 
livinsr. 



J. W. STUART 

Was born in Maine, May 25, 1819, where he was raised 
and educated. He came to this State in 1849, going to 
Sutter's Eort, and to Coloma, El Dorado County, where 
he was mining, as well as on the Feather and Yuba Rivers. 
In 1852 he returned to Maine, and again came to California 
in the Spring of 1853, settling in this County, and on the 
land he now owns. In 1860, he commenced the raising of 
bees, with a capital stock of one hive, and now the hillsides 
present a beautiful picture, being dotted here and there 
with five hundred white homes for the busy bees. About 
two miles northwest from Sonora is the home of Mr. Stuart, 
which is beautifully named "Idlewild Apiary." 



NATHANIEL FALES. 

The subject of this sketch was born in Thomaston, Knox 
County, Maine, June 18, 1810, where he was raised and 
educated. He sailed from Boston, Massachusetts, in the 
ship "California Packet," on March 4, 1850, came around 
Cape Horn, and landed in San Francisco on the following 
August 24. He went to Woolf's Creek, on the Yuba River, 
where he mined for a short time, and then returned to San 
Francisco, thence coming to this County and settling at 
Shaw's Flat, in October, 1851. Here he was engaged in 
mining until August, 1852, when he went to Springfield, 
and followed the same occupation. In 1856 he purchased 



358 HISTOKY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 

his present farm, known as "The Evergreen Kanch," situ- 
ated near Springfield. It is a beautiful home, commanding 
a view of the surrounding country, which a lover of the 
beautiful can not help but enjoy. Mr. Tales married Mary 
P. Morse, on July 25, 3 835. She was a native of Maine. 
Her death occurred on July 16, 187G, when, having no 
children, he was left alone until the following Fall, when 
W. H. Harding and his wife (a niece of Mr. Tales) came 
from Nebraska and took up their residence with him, where 
they still remain. 



A. D. CHAMPNEY. 

» This California pioneer was born in Oswego Count}', New 
York, on March 31, 1814. In 183G he emigrated to Chicago, 
Illinois, and thence to Peoria in that State, where he lived 
two years. In 1839 he settled at Springfield, the Capitol 
of the State, and was employed to assist in erecting the 
State House. He moved to Natchez, Mississippi, in 1841, 
and thencft in 1844 to New Orleans. Here he remained 
until 1849, when he took passage fortius State, coming ria 
the Isthmus, landing in San Francisco on October l'2th of 
that year. The 26th of October found him at Wood's 
crossing, where he mined for gold until the S^Driug of 1857, 
when he bought what is no^ known as the Alameda mine, 
situated near Rawhide. He left this mine in 1860, and 
settled on his ranch, located in a valley shadowed by the 
famous Table Mountain range, and one and a half miles 
west from Springfield. The place is known by the name 
of " Mayflower Vineyard." Grapes and other fruits are the 
principal products of the farm. Mr. Champney married 
Ruth E. Dodge, a native of the State of New York. By 
this union there are Martha, Jessie, Fred A., Mary E., 
Georofe H. and Charles L. 



HISTORY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 359 

N. BISHOP 
Is a native of Suffolk County, New York, When eight- 
een years years old he shipped on a whaler coming to the 
Pacific Ocean in 1844, returning in 1848. For two more 
years he continued to follow a sea-faring life, and then 
came to San Francisco in 1850. He first settled at Don 
Pedro's Bar, in September, IBfA), where he mined. He 
moved to the northern mines via San Francisco; thence to 
this county in May, 1851, settling at Woods' crossing. 
Here he took up a claim and continued working it until 
going to Australia in the Spring of 1853. He soon re- 
turned to the old place, however, and engaged in mining 
until 1862j when he went into partnership with Mr. Gault 
in a store at Woods' crossing. He bought out his partner, 
and is now the sole owner of the business. 



ROBERT S. RAYMOND. 

Born in Nantucket, Massachusetts, on March 5, 1832. 
He left the island in October, 1854, taking passage on the 
steamer "North Star" for the Isthmus of Panama, and 
arrived in San Francisco in November of that year. He 
came direct to Sonora, and, with the exception of six months 
spent in the East on a visit, he has maintained a permanent 
residence in Sonora, where he has been steadily engaged 
in the hardware trade. 



JOHN KING 

Was born in the Parish of St. Clair, Canada, on June 
25, 1831. When thirteen years old he moved to Caledonia 
County, Vermont. Here he was raised on a farm and con- 
tinued to reside till he came to this State via Panama, 



860 HISTORY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 

landing at San Francisco on the 14tli of November, 1851. 
He came direct to this county and settled at Poverty Hill, 
where he was engaged as a miner during the Winter 
months, and followed teaming in the Summer until 1856, 
when he came to Columbia and mined at Gold Hill. In 
the Spring of 1860 he bought and moved on his ranch at 
Columbia, where he has since continuously resided, except 
while in the United States service. The products of his 
farm are fruits. In 1861 Mr. King enlisted in the Second 
California Cavah-y, and was in the service for three years, 
being honorably discharged in October, 1864. He married 
Mrs. Sarah Clow, a native of Canada. Lillie Florence is 
the name of their only child. 



B. F. BUTTERFIELD. 

Among the many resident pioneers is the subject of this 
sketch. He was born in Goffstown, Hillsborough County, 
New Hampshire, on July 24, 1817. He was educated in 
the common schools of Gofl'stown, and taught in merchan- 
tile pursuits. For some years he sailed on the lakes be- 
tween the ports of Buffalo and Chicago. He came to this 
State on the first trip of the steamship "Falcon" from New 
Orleans to the mouth of the Chagres Kiver, up the river in 
a canoe, and came across the Isthmus on a mule, and from 
Panama to San Francisco on the first trip of the old steam- 
ship California, which arrived in San Francisco February 
28, 1849. 

Here he remained till the latter part of March, then came 
to Jamestown. At a point now called old Jamestown, on 
the opposite side of the creek from the main camp, he 
erected a store, made of canvass and logs, and commenced 
general merchandizing, and has continuously followed that 
business to the present time. This is the oldest store in 



HISTORY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 361 

the county, and Mr. Butterfield was one of the first to em- 
bark in mercantile pursuits in old Tuolumne. Married 
Amanda Melvina Currier, a native of Portsmouth, New 
Hampshire. 



JAMES G. DIVOLL. 

Mankind loves the marvelous. To dwell upon the al- 
most incredible relations of fiction, to discuss the unex- 
plainable phenomena of nature, and to gaze with wonder- 
ing eyes ujDon the relics and evidences of races and peoples 
unknown to us, would seem a characteristic of humanity 
as strongly marked as it is general. This instinct of the 
marvelous, which we may credit all men with possessing, 
manifests itself in a variety of ways; but of these different 
ways not one is more remarkable than that one which im- 
pels the interest of mankind to ponder upon, to study 
and consider of great riches. The world gloats over a 
tale of gold and feasts its eyes upon the evidences of 
wealth. . The fabled king of old who bathed in the Pactol- 
ian stream, is but remembered as he whose touch turned 
all to gold. The good monarch of Lydia, although his 
virtues would shed a luster upon the most Catholic Prince 
that ever lived, exists only in the aphorism " As rich as 
Croesus," and Solomon's self might not stand before the 
modern mind as a model, had it not been that his ships 
made successful voyages to Tarshish. 

The literature of the later centuries has found its s^Dring 
of action largely in a thirst for gold, or it has delineated 
with intense interest the acquirement of great fortunes. 
Who has not heard of Monte Christo ? And who has not 
speculated upon the chance of similar success falling upon 
himself, though knowing the extreme rarity of the occa- 
sions in which even moderate fortunes have been so gained. 



362 HISTORY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 

Although the tale of the fortanate Count has been given 
to mankind through Dumas' skilful pen, it has not often 
fallen to the lot of any but novelists to record the acquire- 
ment of enormous wealth which came suddenly and came 
to reward deserving industry and far-£.eeing calculation. 
The story of the Comstock miners has little of romance, 
nor do the lucky possessors of those great mines of gold 
and silver deserve the praise or congratulation of men, 
since the use to which they put their riches is often of the 
basest. 

It is a pleasant duty, and a duty which does not often in 
this work-day world fall to the lot of a writer, to record 
the munificent reward of patient and uncomjjlaining per- 
severance, which has had few parallels in the world. It is 
a story of the sternest self-denial and the practice of in- 
dustry for years of a laborious life, with the final result of 
the sudden accession of a fortune great enough to be the 
fitting reward of such exertions. But with the accession of 
fortune the interest of the story does not end. Pleasant 
as it is to chronicle a deserved reward, it is no less agree- 
able to tell the story of the charitable and munificent uses 
to which that fortune is devoted bj one \^hose good luck 
has not killed in him the nobler feelings that actuate the 
human family. 

James G. Divoll was born in Orange County, Vermont, 
on the eighth of January, 1831. In early life his parents 
removed to Port Kent, on the shore of Lake (Jhamplain. 
Attending] the common schools of the vicinity, and, after- 
wards graduating from the Academy at Burlington, he at 
the age of 18 years, removed to the great West, settling 
first at Fond Du Lac, in Wisconsin. 

Here his stay was short, for the cholera breaking out 
compelled his removal, and he returned to the East, stop- 
ping for a while at Chatauqua, New York, but finally ar- 



HISTORY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 363 

riving at the old home in Vermont, in the latter part of 
1850. In the following Spring Mr. Divoll married Miss 
Eliza Jane Mellen, at Northfield, Vermont, and the young 
couple proceeded westward, taking up their abode at Black 
River Falls, in the State of Wisconsin. Here Mr. D. 
entered into the manufacture of flour, which he carried on 
with success for nearly ten years, at che end of that time 
selling the property which he had accumulated, and which 
included a tract of ten thousand acres of land lying in 
Clark County. 

Turning his steps to the " Sun Land," Mr. Divoll with 
thi'ee friends took passage at New York, on a steamship of 
the Vanderbilt Line, and set his fool up«n the shore of 
California in June 1862. Saying in ans-wer to his compan- 
ions' queries: " I am going to leave San Francisco on the 
first steamer that leaves the wharf," Mr. Divoll found 
himself, the next day, in Stockton, booked for a seat in the 
first stage that left, regardless of its destination. That 
the destination of that stage was Sonora seems at a 
casual view to be a trifling fact; but that fact led to the 
finding of the greatest deposit of pure gold that has yet 
been taken from the earth. Lovers of the marvelous will 
find in the comparatively insignificant circumstances of the 
departure of a steamer and a stage, two steps which may 
seem to have been j)redestined in Mr. Divoll's remarkable 
life; and other circumstances give rise to the same feeling. 

In the matter of mill-work and particularly in the 
mechanism of flour mills, Mr. Divoll had in his early years 
become thoroughly versed, his Wisconsin experience giving 
him a deep insight into all matters connected with those 
branches of constructive mechanics. Accordingly, on his 
arrival in this region he employed himself in building a 
flour mill for D. W. TuUoch, and during the same year 
built the bridge at Knight's Ferry. 



364 HISTORY OF TUOLUMNE COUXTT. 

Mr. Divoll's first experience in Souora pleasantly resulted 
in his making the acquaintance of William G. Long, who 
being then as now a miner, magnanimously offered Mr. D. 
the use of his sluice-boxes to aid him in his first mining 
venture; and this acquaintance has resulted in the life-long 
friendshij) of the two. 

After completing the mill and bridge spoken of, he lo- 
cated in Sonora, purchasing of Smith Mitchell the Saratoga 
Ranch, and proceeded to develop a mine on his property, 
which mine was very successfully worked, yielding many 
thousands of dollars. 

Several years now passed in mining and other operations, 
during which h^ met generally with a full measure of suc- 
cess, until the year 1871 came around and the explora- 
tion of the Bonanza Vein was entered upon, marking, as it 
has done, an era in gold mining, and leading to successes 
in comparison with which the good fortune of ordinary 
life sinks into nothingness. Yet these successes, stupen- 
dous as they are in the aggregate, were not achieved at once. 
Half a score of years of patient waiting had to be passed; 
many hundred feet of tunnels, drifts and iucliues were 
run, and the few hands which the small resources of the 
owners could bring to bear, could proceed but slowly. 
Years passed and only meager gains rewarded the toil of 
the industrious men. Bills had to be met and bread had 
to be provided for dependent mouths. The old story of 
unflagging energy and perseverance was recounted; and, 
at last, just as the hopes of the stoutest-hearted were 
wavering, these heroic miners were called to their magnifi- 
cent reward. Following the "prospect," as it showed 
plainly one day, to be obscured the next, the head of 
the tunnel came nearer and nearer to the great deposit of 
virgin metal which awaited them, and finally the pick's 
keen point struck through the obdurate stone into a treasury 



HISTORY OF TUOLUMXE COUNTY. 365 

of rative wealth such as was never before given to man to 
look upon. Eight hundred pounds of solid gold was ship- 
ped from this mine at one time, and there is reason for 
believing that the product for a single week was a third of 
a million of dollars! Nor is this all; subsequent work has 
been richly rewarded, rich "pockets" being met with at 
close intervals. It is a tale of more than East Indian 
wealth, and perhaps it is not less attractive because the 
owners keep the exact figures to themselves, allowing the 
envious outsiders the privilege of imagination. 

From this time on Mr. Divoll's life has been a story of 
prosperity. Drawing fabulous wealth from the mine (of 
which he is now sole owner) he has been enabled to enter 
into many plans for the accomjjlishment of good to his 
fellow-man, and the enrichment of the community in which 
he lives. It has been truly said that he is the life of Tuol- 
umne County; and it is extremely pleasant to be able to 
say so much of one who deserves so much of good fortune, 
and upon whom the honors sit so lightly. Too much can- 
not be said in favor of Mr. Divoll's generosity and open- 
handedness. Unlike others, whose success has been as 
great as it is undeserved, he does not clutch his wealth so 
tightly but that the calls of charity and the wants of his 
fellow.beings make an impression. The detestable specta- 
cle of a filthy, sting}', ill-dressed, half-human old miser, 
forms no part of his appearance, and it is only the wish of 
his fellow-citizens that James G. Divoll may live long to 
enjoy the gains which a discriminating fortune placed in 
his hands, and to cordially wish that all the bonanza wealth 
had reached his coffers, instead of partially going to enrich 
squalid meanness. 

The number of the enterprising schemes which the busi- 
ness talent or the benevolence of Mr. Divoll have given 
rise to, is legion. The proprietor of the Star Flouring 



366 HISTORY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 

Mills in Souora, into wliich the owner has introc^uced the 
latest improvements in the art of making a first rate article 
of flour; the promoter of various mining enterprises, and 
the steady encourager and aider of any plan which prom- 
ises to be of practical benefit to his fellow-man, Mr. D. 
has gained a reputation for enterprise second to no other. 
Of late, however, his intelligence has produced and elabo- 
rated the details of an enterprise which will, when carried 
out, not only surpass his previous operations, but throw 
into the shade any and everj'^ work of that character ever 
before attempted. This is the proposed supplying of the 
principal cities of this State with pui-e water from the 
Sierra Nevada. Tliis is the origin of the Tuolumne and 
Oakland Water Company — a corporation devoted to carry- 
ing out the above object, and who, as a preliminary step, 
have secured the right of the water which flows from the 
area of country lying in Tuolumne County between the 
North Fork of the Tuolumne Eiver and the boundary line 
of Mariposa County, and extending downward from the 
summits of the Sierra about twenty-five miles toward the 
west, embracing somewhat over four hundred square miles 
of country, the drainage of which^ amounting to over 25,000 
inches of water, is to be utilized. The eminent adapta- 
bility of this section to its proposed use may be summed 
up in a few words. First, it is almost entirely uninhabited, 
being in fact incapable of supporting more than a few 
hunters and timber-getters. Then it is bare, in its upper 
regions, of vegetable growth, thus avoiding the danger of 
organic impurities in the water. H s country rock is granite, 
which fact proves the freedom of the waters from any 
soluble salts, as those of lime, which in other districts 
cause the water to be "hard." The territory is provided 
with innumerable lakes of crystal clearness, which act as 
immense reservoirs, supplementing the snow-piles, the best 



HISTORY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 367 

and most efficient reservoirs that kind nature has ever con- 
structed, giving up their stored wealth of waters in the 
warm summer days when other sources of supply have 
failed. Finally, this great catchment field is situated at 
an altitude which allows every drop of its yield to be 
utilized. 

Here, then, is an inexhaustible source of the purest water 
under the sun — water that has been raised by the agency 
of the sun's rays, from the bosom of the ocean, lifted to a 
great hight in the form of clouds, which, blown inland into 
contact with the cold air surrounding the lofty Sierra, lose 
themselves in drops of rain or flakes of snow. And the 
rain or snow, falling upon the solid rock, still uncontami- 
nated by even the least impurity, remains stored in lake, in 
canon, or in snow field, until the rays of the genial sun 
have again dissolved its bonds and set it free, to run joy- 
ously over precipice, through dark caiion, or under glacier, 
until it loses itself in the brawling Tuolumne. 

Precisely at the spot where the smaller streams join the 
main river, the dams of the new company are to be erected. 
Provided with gates to control the supply, and including 
reservoirs sufficient to obviate accidental sources of im- 
purity in the way of floating wood or disseminated sand, 
etc., they are to deliver their supplies to two mains, com- 
posed of iron, each of which has an internal diameter of 
thirty-six inches, and of a strength sufficient to withstand 
the pressure which may be imposed. Proceeding by a 
regular grade westward about thirty degrees north, pass- 
ing some half dozen miles south of Stockton, and continu- 
ing beyond Mount Diablo, circling to the north of that 
peak, then turning south towards Oakland, it terminates 
near that city, first sending branch pipes of less diameter 
to Stockton, to Sacramento, to San Jose and other places, 
to perform its function of supplying perfectly pure snow- 



368 HISTOEY OF TT30LUMNE COUNTY. 

water to nine cities, containing a present population of four 
hundred thousand, and to whom the proposed works, it is 
calculated, could deliver a supply of 24,000,000 gallons 
daily — a supply in excess of that enjoyed by New York, a 
city of a million inhabitants. 

This gigantic and promising scheme has the support of 
engineers of ability. Mr. J. P. Dart, than whom no one is 
better qualified to speak of the hydrography of the Upper 
Sierra, has given it the seal of his approval; and his sur- 
veys, accompanied by lucid maps, explain so satisfactorily 
the details of the work, that it is impossible to be con- 
vinced of aught but its entire practicability. Fuller details 
are not wanting. The importance of the work is undoubted. 
That it will prove remunerative none can gainsay; and that 
inasmuch as it rests in Mr. Divoll's hands, its construction 
will be carried through, is equally a matter of certainty. 



JOHN P. DAET 
•Was born in Warren County, Mississippi, on December 9, 
1824. Here he was educated, evincing at an early age the 
striking predisj)Osition which has led him to the study of 
surveying, which he has since adopted as his profession. 
Mr. Dart enlisted in the First Mississippi Rifles, and fought 
in the Mexican War for one year; then, returning home, he 
engaged in surveying. In 1849, he came to this State via 
the Isthmus, and was eight months in getting to San Fran- 
cisco, where he arrived October 5th of that year. He 
remained in San Francisco until April, 1850, when he came 
to Jacksonville, in this county, went to mining, and has 
been engaged more or less in that business up to the pres- 
ent writing. He was elected County Surveyor in 1874, 
and has held that office to the acceptance of the whole 
community. 



HISTORY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 369 

F. C. CULLERS. 

The subject of this notice is a Virginian, having been 
born in Page County, Virginia, in 1837. He made his ap- 
pearance on the Pacific Coast in 1853, coming by the famil- 
iar Isthmus route. Directing his steps toward the South- 
ern mines, he began digging at Yankee Hill, remaining there 
for the almost unprecedented time of sixteen years! His 
next and final location was Confidence. Mr. Cullers en- 
joys the esteem of his associates in a remarkable degree, 
holding as he does the office of Worthy Chief of the large 
and flourishing Lodge of Good Templars at the above 
place. His wife, nee Miss A. M. Eastwood, to whom he 
was married in Sonora, together with the following named 
children, form his family: Robert F., William C. , Henry 
M., and Laura B. 



J. W. KEITH. 

This gentleman, who was born in Waldo County, on the 
sea coast of the State of Maine, is now located pleasantly 
on his ranch two miles above Jacksonville. The principal 
acts of his life are narrated by himself as follows: Born on 
the 9th of June, 1824, at the age of eighteen he went to 
Lowell, Massachusetts, and there learning the trade of 
machinist, worked at it until 1851, when the desire for 
travel came upon him, and packing up, he sought the land 
of gold . His first mining ventures were made at Jackson- 
ville, then an exceedingly lively camp, whose fortunes he 
followed through thick and thin for ten years. Since that 
time he has held the office of Tax Collector, about five 
years; going in 1866 on to his present location. Five years 
later he sold out, but again in 1877, re-purchased the place, 
and has resided there since. Married to Miss Jane Gramble, 
in 1863, he has six children: H. W., A. G., Charles P., 
Hattie J. , Ben F., and John E. 



370 HISTORY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY, 

WILLIAM HIBBING, 

Who now resides on his beautiful farm on Sullivan's Creek, 
is a native of Germany, from whence he came to America 
in 1848, locating first in Charleston, S. C, where he was 
employed as a clerk in a store until the year 1851, when 
going to New York, he shipped via Panama for California^ 
Finally coming to Sonora, where he mined until 1856, then 
opening a saloon and lodging house, remaining so occupied 
until 1860, when the attraction of farm life carried him to 
his present fine property, consisting of four hundred and 
eighty acres, upon which he has erected at great pains and 
cost a very elegant residence, wherein he now resides with 
his interesting family. Marrying in Sonora immediately 
upon his arrival, he has five children: William D., Matilda, 
Louis, Amelia and Otto. 



M. FOOT. 

Born at Villanovia, Chatauqua County, N. Y., on the 
25th of June, 1821, Mr. Foot went to Michigan at the 
early age of twelve years, locating in lona County and re- 
maining there until his departure for the Pacific slope. 
This journey he made with ox-teams in the traditional way, 
walking a great part of the distance that sei:)arated his home 
in the Lake State from the broad Pacific. Spending the 
next two years in Sierra and Eldorado Counties, in gold 
seeking, he then came to this vicinity, locating permanently 
at Groveland. Mining in that vicinity, store-keeping at 
Second Garrote, and hotel-keeping at Groveland, have en- 
grossed his attention ever since; the last mentioned busi- 
ness continuing under his charge up to the present time, it 
beitig carried on in a way highly acceptable to the traveling 
public. Marrying in Groveland Miss Mary J. Burns, they 
have two children: Sarah and Delora R. 



HISTOKY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 371 

THEODORE LOPEZ. 

This gentleman, one of the oldest settlers of Tuolumne 
County and this State, was born in Newport, Rhode 
Island, on Jan. 13, 1814. In early life he took up his res- 
idence in New York City, and on September 26, 1846, he 
sailed for this coast as a soldier in Stevenson's Regiment. 
He arrived at San Francisco on March 5, 1847, thence 
going to Santa Barbara, where he remained until discharged, 
September 28, 1848. From Santa Barbara he proceeded to 
Weaver Creek, thence to San Francisco, and came to this 
county March 10, 1849 . He located at Jamestown, where 
he remained, and was engaged in mining until May, 1849, 
when he went to Stockton, but soon returning, he settled 
in Sonora in March, 1850, where he has since resided. 



T. M. YANCEY. 

The subject of this narrative, whose portrait appears in 
this work, was born in Pulaski, Giles County, Tennessee, 
on September 23, 1826. When nearly nine years old his 
parents took him to Marshall County, Mississippi, where 
he was educated. When the war with Mexico came on, 
Mr. Yancey enlisted in the First Mississippi Infantry-, 
commanded by Jefferson Davis, in which regiment he 
served with honor till the close of the war. Mr. Yancey 
early in life learned the printer's trade, following it until 
after returning from the war, until he came to this State. 
In 1851, he crossed the jDlains, and first made a halt in 
California at Sonora, Tuolumne County. He came to Co- 
lumbia on the 17th of September, 1852, where he was 
engaged in mining until May, 1853, when he went on the 
Gazette and continued on the paper until 1858. In Octo- 
ber of that year he was appointed Deputy Sheriff, in which 



372 HISTORY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 

office he remained for three years. In 1863, he moved to 
Mono County, and was appointed one of the Commission- 
ers of the Mono road. In the following year we find him 
at Silver City, Idaho, where he remained about one year, 
and returning to Sonora, entered the Democrat office, and 
there remained for eleven years and four months. He was 
elected Sheriff of Tuolumne County in 1876, and so faith- 
fully has he discharged the duties of his office that he has 
been his own successor to the present time. One cannot 
speak too highly of Mr. Yancey's administration as Sheriff. 
Common thieves, highwaymen, stage robbers f;.nd murder- 
ers have all found their detection and conviction sure, if 
their depredations were committed within the juris- 
diction of our Sheriff. Mr. Yancey married Eosa B. 
Crowell on the 12th of September, 1860. She is a 
native of Maine. Their children are: Louisa (now Mrs. 
Geo. McQuade), Mabel, Edna, Henry L. and Nellie. ■ 



C. L. STREET 

Is a native of Sheldon, Wyoming County, New York, 
and was born on November 10, 1821, receiving his primary 
education in that State. In 1840, the family moved to 
Carthage, Hancock County, Illinois. Prior to this, how- 
ever, Mr. Street p.iid a visit to the Southern States, but 
located, finally, with his people in Carthage, where his 
uncle, M. B. Street, had also settled. In 1846, the Street 
families emigrated to Johnson County, Arkansas, where 
they lived until coming to California via Fort Smith, Fort 
Yuma, thence to San Diego and San Franciaco, where they 
arrived on November 1, 1849, Here they resided until 
February, 1850, then came to this county, camj^ing a short 
time at Jamestown; thence going to Woods' Creek, about 
one-half a mile above Sonora. In May, 1851, he, in com- 



HISTORY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 373 

nection with bis brother, H. L. Street, raised a tent where 
the Episcojjal church now stands, in which they conducted 
a commercial business. Mr. Street sold out on March 15, 
1851, returned East, but again returned to Sonora in August 
of that year . He purchased a one-half interest in a store 
then owned by his uncle, his partner being his brother, H. 
L. Street, and the business was conducted by them until 
1859. The subject of our sketch was elected Justice of the 
Peace in 1859, remaining in that office until 18G6. He was 
also one of the Associate Justices of this county. He 
commenced the study of law while a resident of Sonora, 
and was admitted to the Bar, and opened his present office 
on the corner of Washington street and Yaney avenue. 
He has since associated himself with his cousin, Frank W. 
Street. He married Phcebe Weston, a native of Rockvilie, 
Connecticut, "and by this union had one child, H. L. Street. 



CxVLEB DORSET. 

This gentleman, one of the practicing attorneys of So- 
nora, was born in Howard County, Maryland, March 25, 
1825, receiving there his primary education. When about 
eighteen years of age, he attended school at Rockville, 
Maine, and afterwards was prepared for college. He 
graduated from Harvard College, and received instruction 
from the celebrated jurists, Grreenleaf, Kent, and Judge 
Story. He studied law with Eobert J. Brent, was admitted 
to the Bar, and commenced practice at Baltimore, Mary- 
land. Coming to this State via the Isthmus of Panama, 
he arrived in October, 1850, He came to this county, 
settled at Shaw's Flat, and mined for six months. At the 
Flat he erected a sawmill, and conducted that business, in 
addition to practicing his profession, for nearly two years* 



374 msTORY OF tuolumne county. 

Then, settling at Sonora, he opened a law office, since 
which time he has been practicing his profession. He has 
held the office of District Attorney for several terms in 
Tuolumne County. This volume contains numerous refer- 
ences to Mr. Dorsey's career, which, throughout, has been 
of the greatest importance to the County. 



THOMAS W. WELLa 

Mr. Wells was born in Sonora on the 13th of August, 
1857. He commenced the study of the photographer's art 
at Sonora, and finished at San Francisco, under the direc- 
tion of J. H. Peters. His Photograph Gallery is now 
located at the southeast corner of Washington and Dodge 
streets. The photographic business was first commenced 
here by Bacl)elder Bros., then passing into the hands of 
Wm. H. Eulofson, and later of Daniel Sewell, after which 
it was purchased by Mr. Wells, who is now the only pho- 
tographer of the county. Mr. Wells married Maggie J. 
Harrington on June 27, 1881. Mr. Wells has signalized 
himself by a close devotion to his art that has resulted in 
the production of extremely good work. No pains are, in 
his estimation, too great to insure first-class pictures, and 
specimens of his work will compare favorably with the best 
done in San Francisco. 



JOHN BOWMAN 

Was born in Germany, on December 13, 1833. He came 
to the United States in 1852, and settled at New York City. 
He afterwards took up his residence at Milltown, Middle- 
sex County, New Jersey, where he resided until coming to 
California, in 1856, via Panama. He first settled at Co- 
lumbia, in this County, and afterwards came to Sonora, 



HISTORY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 375 

■where he rented the Philadelphia Brewery, in 1861, This 
brewery was located on the ground where Mr. Romans now 
resides. Mr. Bowman was the proprietor of this brewery 
until 1865. In 1866, he purchased the building which is 
now known as the Sonora Brewery, and commenced the 
manufactare of beer, and has followed that business at the 
same place ever since. The brewery building is 60x120 
feet, built of brick and stone. It contains all the necessary 
api^liances for manufacturing beer and other beverages; 
and if the brewery were run up to its full capacity, it would 
turn out fifteen hundred barrels of beer per year. 



HON. WILLIAM G. LONG. 

This respected citizen of Tuolumne, whose portrait 
appears herein, was born in Rockland, Knox county, 
Maine, April 19, 1831. At the early age of nine years, he 
left home and went to sea. Step by step he rose from a 
cabin boy to the position of master of a vessel. This posi- 
tion he was filling when he sailed to California, letting go 
the anchor in the bay of San Francisco in the Fall of 1850. 
He at once came to this county, bought a three eighths 
interest in the Campo Seco Water Company, and located 
at Woods' Crossing. This business he followed during the 
years '51-2, then going to mining at Campo Seco and at 
Humbug Hill. At the latter place Mr. Long operated the 
first hydraulic mine in the county, in the years 1856-7. 
In 1850, he returned to his native home, and there mai'ried 
Jennie Linekin, bringing her to Sonora. He ran for Sher- 
iff of this county, but was defeated by John Bourland. 
During the Winter of 1872-3, he represented Tuolumne, 
Mono and Inyo counties in the lower house of the Legisla- 
ture, and in 1875-6, he was appointed Revenue Collector. 
He once owned and opened the Grolden Gate mine, and has 



376 HISTOKY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 

been identified with, several large mines and mining inter- 
ests in this county. Although Mr. Long's family reside at 
Hayward's, California, he claims Sonora as his home, and 
has done so since his coming in 1850. The names of his 
children are Willietta, Charles S., Percy, Eobert, Jennie 
and Willie. 



JOHN VAN HAELINGEN 

Is a native of Warren county, Ohio, where he was born 
on April 26, 1826. He was raised and educated in his 
native county, from which he moved in 1846, settling in 
Louisiana. He left New Orleans on Feb. 18, 1849, and 
came to California via Mexico, arriving here on June 24th 
of that year. He came to Sonora on the 26th of the fol- 
lowing August, and at once engaged in mining, which 
occupation he followed for about three years. He was 
elected County Coroner and Public Administrator in 1877, 
which position he now holds. He married Elizabeth Koth, 
and bv this union has six children. 



J. M. CABEZUT. 

This old settler is a native of Mexico, and was born 
March 19, 1830. He came to California in May, 1849, and 
to this county in the June following. He was engaged in 
mining until the Fall of 1849, then gdiug to San Jose, 
where he remained during the Winter, returning to Sonora 
in April, 1850, and opening a restaurant on the ground 
where he is now located, in a house built of canvas, which 
has since given way to a frame building. He married 
Mary Ramires, and the pair have one daughter, Magdalena 





< // 1/^ Ly ' 




^^^^^-2^ 




HISTORY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 377 

LEANDER QUINT, 

Lawyer, came early to Sonora, and engaged in the practice 
of law as early as 1850. A part of his business was in the 
" Court" of Judge Barry, and this anecdote of the two is 
given on the authority of an eyewitness : Quint had a sin- 
gular habit of gesticulating with one of his hands, from 
which he had lost the three first fingers, tlie remaining 
thumb and the little finger being extended in a peculiar 
and disagreeable manner. On one occasion Barry had 
ruled against Quint, who exclaimed: "Judge, I never did 
have any show in your Court!" "No, damn you, sir," 
replied Barry, "and you never shall have any! When a 
man comes into Court and wiggles his fingers and rolls up 
his eyes as you do, he can't have any show here. In 
Texas, we had man-traps, sir, that cost thieves their fingers. 
It looks damned suspicious, sir — it looks damned suspi- 
cious — but I hope it is all right ! " 

Mr. Quint was not utterly extinguished by this, but went 
on and became County Judge. Following the example of 
others of his profession, he removed to San Francisco, 
gained a large jDractice and achieved honors. He was 
attorney for the defendant iu the celebrated trial of Laura 
D. Fair for the murder of Crittenden — a fact that proves 
his high standing at the Bar. 



DR. L. C. GUNN, 

An able physician, became an inhabitant of Tuolumne in 
1840. Practicing medicine and surgery, he became widely 
known throughout the region. In 1850, he was part pro- 
prietor of the Sonora Herald, and^maintained a connection 
with that sheet through a large part of its prosperous 
career. He built, in 1852, an elegant dwelling near the 
present site of the County Hospital. The drug business 



378 HISTORY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 

engrossed his attention for years, repaying him largely. 
At one time he held the office of County Treasurer, serving 
with general acceptance. His present home is in San Diego, 
where he is spending the latter years of an active and 
useful life. 



JOHN SEDGWICK, 

At first Deputy to James Stuart, the valorous Sheriff of 
Tuolumne, afterAvards elected to that office himself, suc- 
ceeding Stuart, cut a pi eminent figure in both positions. 
He was always regarded as a most capable and energetic 
officer, the terror of roughs and thieves and the reliance of 
the law-abiding. Leaving Tuolumne for Stockton, Mr. 
Sedgwick held the Government position of Collector. Now 
in San Francisco, he is Sheriff of that city, an office 
achieved through his well-known merit. 



HOKACE BULL 

Was an attorn ej- of prominence at an early date. "A very 
refined gentleman." He was admitted to practice in July, 
185], and came to his end by suicide, in February, 1854, 
aged 29 years. 



E. R. GALVIN, 

After a prosperous career as a lawyer, passed away, two 
years since, leaving the details of his life yet fresh in men's 
minds. The earlier part of his legal career was passed in 
Columbia, where he became Justice of the Peace. Remov- 
ing afterward to Sonora, he held the office of District 
Attorney for two terms. A man of uncommon talents and 
shrewdness, and an able rival of the lawyers of his day. 



HISTORY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 379 

GEOEGE W. HALE 

Is a native of Somerset County, Maine, and was born May 
12, 1836. At the age of fourteen, he moved to Brighton, 
Mass. He came to California in 1857, and after residiug in 
different parts of the State, returned East, and again com- 
ing to California in 1859, and settling at Columbia, where 
he now lives. In the Fall of 1879, Mr. Hale erected his 
new sawmill, on the south fork of the Stanislaus River, and 
on the ranch once owned by the notorious Jim Lyons. The 
mill is 24x100 feet, has two circular saws, and its capacity 
is twenty thousand feet of lumber in twelve hours. There 
is also a shingle machine in the mill, which turns out forty 
thousand shingles per day. The prime industry of the 
region where Mr. Hale's mill is located is the manufacture 
of lumber. The pine forests of this part of the county are 
extensive, and for three decades men have been plunging 
into their depths and utilizing those stately trees. Steadily, 
with the growth of the county, the business has increased, 
until it standsto-day a prime factor on the commercial cata- 
logue. Millions of feet are cut annually and yet the source 
seems practically inexhaustible. 



L. F. JARVIS. 

The subject of this sketch was born in Surrey, Hancock 
County, Maine, on August 23, 1819. He received his 
primary education at the common schools of Surrey and 
Ellsworth, and his academic learning at Exeter, N. H., and 
at Bowdoin College in Brunswick, Cumberland County, 
Maine. He studied law in Bangor, with Judges Hathaway 
and Shepley, and after being admitted to the Bar practiced 
his profession at Ellsworth. In 1849, he came round the 
Horn to this State, landing in San Francisco on April 7, 
1850. He first settled at San Jose; thence going to the 



380 HISTORY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 

south fork of the American Eiver, where he was engaged 
in miniug. He came to this county in 1851, and took up a 
residence at Columbia, and soon after moved to the place 
where he now lives, giving it the name of Vine Springs. 
Mr. Jarvis has sixty acres of land planted with grapevines, 
and an orchard of the same size. He has an excellent 
wine cellar, and all the necessary appliances for making 
fine wines. Near his house are two large springs, the water 
of which is conducted by means of a hydraulic ram to the 
house, and by ditches to the wine cellar and other jjarts of 
the farm. Mr. Jarvis married Mar^"^ A. Robinson now 
deceased), a native of Ellsworth, Maine. 

Mr. Jarvis has in his possession a number of rare and 
invaluable heirlooms, the large and richly chased silver 
tankard presented to Sir William Pepperrell by the mayor 
of the city of London after the capture of Louisburg, also 
a large and beautiful silver candlestick, belonging to Sir 
William, and in his j^arlor hangs a life-size portrait of St. 
Paul, by one of the masters, which though nearly 250 
years old, is in perfect preservation and appears almost to 
start from the canvas. 



MAJOR R. C. BARRY 

Was born in Great Britain of Irish parents, in 180G, says 
the Union Democrat. Settling at an early age in Texas, on 
the breaking out of the war which resulted in the inde- 
pendence of that State, he became a noted actor therein. 
Strong decision of character marked him, while his educa- 
tion hardly deserved the name, for hardly could he read or 
write. The obstinate man retained throughout life a hatred 
to Mexicans, which extended to all foreigners. 

He served through the Mexican War, and after peace was 
made, came through Mexico to California, in a company in 



HISTORY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY, 381 

which were many of his old fellow-soldiers. Barry came 
up from San Francisco in comj^any with Alfred Luckett, 
Dr. Bell, Joshua Holden, A. Elkins and Captain Alonzo 
Green, all of them settling in what afterwards became 
Sonora. A large population soon arriving, made it neces- 
sary to devise some way of keeping the peace, and Barry, 
on account of his decision of character and indomitable 
resolution, was chosen Justice. This position pleased the 
Major vastly, and he maintained the dignity of his Court 
in the highest degree,, never allowing its decrees to meet 
with aught but the deepest respect. His docket, consist- 
ing of loose papers, was unfortunately burned in one of 
the many disastrous fires which have ravaged Sonora. A 
small portion of this great curiosity is now extant, and has 
been incorjDorated in the body of this w'ork. Much of that 
which is going the rounds of the press, purporting to be 
Barry's docket, is abase forgery, revealing its character by 
internal evidence. 

Major Barry died in Alameda County about 1870. 



DAVID LEVY. 

The subject of our sketch was born in Prussia, Germany, 
on June 22, 184;i. The same year his parents came to the 
United States, first settling in New York City, thence go- 
ing to Sabine Parish, Louisana, but afterward returned to 
New York. From this place the family came to this State 
ria the Isthmus, landing in San Francisco in the Fall of 
1852. Joel Levy, the father of David, had previously paid 
California a visit in 1850, and returned East, then bringing 
out his family as above stated. After a few weeks' stay in 
San Francisco they moved to Sonora, where the father en- 
gaged in mercantile pursuits. In the fire of 1854, Mr. 



382 HISTORY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTy. 

Levy's business house was burned, and he moved with his 
famil}^ to Celumbia. Here this old pioneer and respected 
citizen of Tuolumne County lived until March 9, 1881, 
when he went to reside with two of his sons in Australia, 
and where he died on the 10th of November, 1881. David 
Levy, the subject under special consideration, was taught 
in commercial affairs, and in 1857 began business on his 
own account, in Columbia. This he followed until 1869, 
when he sold out and went to Australia to visit his brothers, 
returning in 1872. Since that time Mr. Levy has discovered 
the Tuolumne, Magnolia, and Ribbon Rock mines, on the 
Stanislaus River, and he is confident that these locations 
rank among the foremost in this county. Since March 1, 
1882. Mr. Levy has been a resident of Sonora. 



HON. THOMAS C. BIRNEY 

Was born in Cuyahoga County, Ohio, on March 17, 1835. 
At the age of seven his parents took him to Livingston 
County, Michigan, thence moving to Ingham County, in 
the same State, where j^oung Birney received his primary 
education in the common schools, finishing his scholastic 
learning at the Union School at Jackson, Michigan. In 
1857, the subject of our memoir came to this State via the 
Isthmus of Panama, and at once settled at Sawmill Flat, 
in this county. Here he engaged in mining, which occupa- 
tion he followed until 1863, at which time he was elected 
District Asses?or, his district embracing the second town- 
ship.of this county. He was his own successor in 1865. 
In 1867, he was elected District Collector, and continued 
to hold that office for two years. In 1869, he was elected 
County Assessor, and continued in the office until De- 
cember, 1875, when he resigned to take his seat in the Lower 
House of the Legislature . He was re-elected to the same 



HISTORY OF TUOLUMXE COUNTY. 383 

office ill 1881, and is the present incumbent. Mr. Birney 
has been engaged in quartz mining for many years, still 
following that occupation. He married Cathrine Boyle, a 
native of Jefferson County, New York. 



O. L. BEMIS 

Was born in East Hartford, Connecticut, on the 2nd of 
September, 1813. "When eighteen years old he moved to 
the State of New York, thence to the southern States; 
leaving there for California in 1819, via Panama, on the 
steamer of the same name, he arrived in San Francisco on 
November 1, 1819. He remained in that place during the 
Winter, and in the following Spring came to Sonora, and 
was engaged in the clothing and shoe business until the 
Fall of 1851; then he opened the Eureka Hotel, which 
stood nearly opposite the present City Hotel, on Washing- 
ton street. The Eureka was burned in the great fire of 
1852, and Mr. Bemis, in 1855, opened the Plaza Hotel, 
which property he afterwards purchased. This hotel was 
also destroyed by the conflagration of 1861. Mr. Bemis 
now moved to Virginia City, where he lived one year, then 
returning to Sonora he purchased the City Hotel, and to 
the present writing has been the only proprietor. There he 
married Mrs. Mary Elizabeth Liudsey, a native of IMassa- 
chusetts. She died April 16, 1878. 



CHAKLES B. RUTHEKFOKD. ' 

This gentleman was born^n Newburyport, Essex County, 
Massachusetts, in September, 1835. Leaving there when 
ten years of age, he settled in Canandagua, New York, 
growing up and attending the Academy with Henry H. 
Haight, afterwards Governor of California. 



384 HISTORY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 

In 1849 Mr. Eutherford, holding a position in the ser- 
vice of the "United States Government, was located at San 
Antonio, Texas, In 1852 he went to Sonora, having ar- 
rived in this State a few weeks previous. Taking a partner, 
he erected a cloth tent on Washington street, it being just 
after the great fire, and commenced business as painters. 
The Hook and Ladder Company had just been organized, 
and Mr. R. painted all the paraphernalia required by its 
one hundred and fifty members During his stay in So- 
nora he erected the brick building which Dr. Sears now 
occupies; also the brick residence of Mr. John Cowie. 

Leaving Sonora in 1861, Mr. R., after three years spent 
in various parts of the State, located permanently in Oak- 
land, and carries on the painting business at 1014 Broad- 
way. His family comprises tliree children. 



H. B. McNEIL AND C. C. BROWN, 

Who practiced law here, are still remembered as intelligent 
and respected members of the Bar. The latter, after a 
succesful career, died in Sonora on the 8th of March, 1868. 
The former, after serving as County Judge, succeeding 
Hon. Chas. Randall, removed to San Francisco, where he 
now resides. 



HENRY M. PEASE 

Was born in W^illiamson Couniy, Illinois, on April 22, 1856. 
He was reared in his native county and at Carbondale. He 
left the latter place for this State, arriving on the 27th of 
March, 1875, and settled in thisxcounty. He followed min- 
ing for a period of six years, when he bought an interest 
in the principal livery stable at Sonora and retains it to the 
present writing. 



HISTORY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 385 

THE HESLEPS, 

Joseph, William G. and Frank, have been important in the 
past years of the County. Of these brothers, the tragic 
fate of Joseph has been told, while William died in Ari- 
zona. They were public spirited men, and men whose 
words and actions were always on the side of the right. 

Among their numerous acts of public spirit was the pre- 
sentation of the cannon known as the Heslep Gun to the 
City of Sonora. 

This piece of ordnance, says the Independent, was cast at 
the Government foundry at Pittsburg, Penn., for the 
armament of a man-of-war, but fell into private hands 
shortly after, and was placed on a privateer destined for 
service in the Mexican War. Subsequently seized by the 
U. S. Marshal, the gun was sold, together with the ship 
bearing- it, and it became the property' of the Pacific Mail 
Steamship Company, by whom it was placed on board of 
the old steamer " Panama," for use cxs a signal gun. On 
the breaking up of that vessel at San Francisco, the gun 
was bought by Mr. Joseph Heslep, and by him presented 
to the citizens of Sonora, being then placed on " Cannon 
Hill," where it remained until the beginning of the Rebel- 
lion, when some discontented parties chopj)ed up the 
wooden carriage, and hauled the gun down to Main street. 
Indignation being evoked by this act, a meeting of citizens 
was held, and the mischievous j^arties were made to remove 
the gun to a suitable site. Later in its history it was rolled 
down into Sonora Creek, where it remained for a half 
dozen years, or until 1873, when it is said to have been in 
use as a buiuper to guard the corner of Oppenheimer's 
store. Dissatisfied with this, the citizens removed it thence 
in the Centennial year to a situation at Greaser Gulch, on 
the road to the " French Garden," where it has since re- 



38G HISTORY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 

maiued. It lies at present on the ground, and is without 
carriage or j)rotection from the elements. 

Its dimensions are as follows: Outside length, ten feet 
eleven inches; length of bore, nine feet; calibre, five and 
two-tenths inches. The weight of the piece is four thou- 
sand seven hundred and sixty pounds, and it is a naval 
Paixlian, or Columbiad, of the best pattern, and is calcu- 
lated to throw an eighteen pound round shot, it being 
smooth bore. 

A portion of its history has been the endeavor of certain 
officials to sell it to the junkmen, half a cent per pound 
being offered; but as the reflecting citizens do not see in 
this a becoming way to treat a valuable and munificent 
present, which, at the same time, by its associations, has 
become really memorable, probably no such thoughtless or 
disrespectful act will be accomplished. 

Sonora and Tuolumne possess many relics, which in fu- 
ture years will lend an interest scarcely felt now. And 
should public sentiment strongly favor their preservation, 
future generations will gratefully thank the careful and 
considerate for their protecting care. 



C. C. WHEELER, 

The present popular and genial proprietor of the Windsor 
House, corner of Ninth and Washington streets, Oakland, 
was an inhabitant of Tuolumne in former years. He was 
born in Waterville, Kennebec County, Maine, in 1834, but 
was reared in Norridgewock, in that State. His life has 
been mainly spent in mining and business pursuits in Cal- 
ifornia and Australia, he having spent three years in the 
search for gold in the latter country, and, after much 
travel, locating and mining at Table Mountain, near Shaw's 
Flat. One year of farming on Johnson's ranch succeeded 



HISTORY OF TDOLUMNE COUNTY. 387 

to the four years spent at the Flat, and then Mr. W., hav- 
ing in the meantime married, proceeded to Oakland, and 
established the first of the express lines connecting San 
Francisco with the towns (then small) on the opposite side 
of the Bay. Merchandising at Placerville, Solano County, 
and similar pursuits at Healdsburg, Sonoma County, suc- 
ceeded to the express business, and finally, in the Centen- 
nial year, he returned to Oakland, and opened the excellent 
and convenient hotel which he now conducts. 

Mr. Wheeler married Miss Angeline G. Stetson, in Co- 
lumbia, during his residence in Tuolumne. The officiating 
clergyman, Mr. L. Hamilton, was called upon twenty 
years later to oiOficiate at the china wedding of the married 
couple, all the parties residing iii Oakland. This pleasant 
circumstance has received a tinge of melancholy from the 
recent death of Mr. Hamilton. 

Mr. and Mrs. Wheeler have two children. 



HON. J. F. EOONEY. 

Judge Kooney is a native of Cold Springs, New York, 
and was born on the 27th of July, 1836. His parents took 
him to Dubuque, Iowa, in 184:0. Mr. Roonej^ was placed 
under the instructions of a private tutor, and this method 
of laying the foundation for a thorough education was pur- 
sued for a number of years. He then entered Sinsinawa 
Mound College, in Wisconsin, receiving there his academi- 
cal education. The Judge came to California via Panama, 
in 1862, arriving in San Francisco on the 19th of July, On 
the 28th of the same mouth he arrived in Sonora, where he 
has since lived. Here he studied law. and was called to 
the Bar in November, 1863, commencing and continuing to 
practice in Sonora. In September, 1877, he was elected 
District Attorney. This position seemed to be but the 



388 HISTORY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY, 

stepping-stone to higher honors, for in December, 1879, he 
resigned that office to be sworn in as the Superior Judge 
ot Tuolumne county, to which office he had been elected. 
Evidently Judge Rooney's motto through life has been 
"AiU vmcere ant mori " — to conquer or die. When we con- 
template his career we may well suggest the idea. One who 
has, without tho aid of any one, gained an honest living, a 
liberal education, and reached a high and honorable posi- 
tion while still young, must glance over his past life with 
feelings of pride when he thinks that what he is, and what 
he has, are due entirely to his own unaided resources. He 
married Yirginia, daughter of Dr. W. E. Eichelroth, and 
has two children. 



JOHN COWIE. 

Born in Aberdeen, Scotland, on March 11, 1821, he 
went to Dundee when quite young, and there learned the 
machinist's trade. In Dundee he married Elizabeth Mc- 
Gregor, on September 8, 1851. She was also born in Scot- 
land, on the 26th of November, 1830. They came from 
their native country to California, rounding Cape Horn, 
and landing in San Francisco in February, 1854. Here 
they resided for a time, then moved to Benicia, Solano 
county, and thence to this county, in March, 1858, and 
settled finally in Souora. Mr. Cowie employed himself in 
the Gem mine, constructing and erecting the • necessary 
machinery to carxy on the work. Mr. Cowie lost all his 
possessions while engaged in this mine, however, and 
moved to Angels' Camp, taking charge of the Altaville 
Foundry. He bought an interest in the Sonora Foundry 
in 1863, and returned to this place, where he has since 
resided. Anna (now Mrs. Denniston), William B., Wallace 
McGiven and Marietta E. are the names of their children. 



HISTORY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 389 

ROBERT FERRAL, 

Editor of the Union Democrat for several years, subse- 
quently editor of a paper at Aurora, Nevada, later on 
moved to San Francisco, and getting admitted to the Bar, 
ran for office, being elected Judge of one of the criminal 
courts in that city, which position he now holds. Demo- 
cratic in politics and extremely energetic, his controversies 
with the opposing political sheets in Sonora were absorb- 
ingly interesting. Many incidents of these disjiutes are 
still treasured in the memories of the old-timers. 



E. F. HUNTER, 

Also an attorney, whose volatile, active temperament got 
him into a number of scrapes, among which the shooting 
of Drake and the killing of the boy McKeuna, at Sacra- 
mento, were conspicuous. For the latter offence he was 
tried, and the jury disagreeing, a change of venue was had 
to Amador County, where, on the second trial, a verdict of 
not guilty was rendered. Shortly after. Hunter returned 
to his old home in Ohio, and his subsequent history is un- 
known. 



COLONEL (OR CAPTAIN) THOMAS R. STODDART, 

Was for many years a noted character in Tuolumne. 
Originally a man of intelligence and education, ho passed 
his life amid stirring scenes in Texas, Mexico and other 
distant lands, eventually finding his way to Tuolumne, 
where he exercised his talents in various ways to gain a 
livelihood, but with meager success. As a newspaper cor- 
respondent he had few equals, his letters signed "Cosmo- 
rama," in the Tuohunne Courier, and other communications 



390 HISTORY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 

from time to time, entitling him to a good standing among 
writers. He prospected, be did ornamental writing, as 
cards, diplomas, etc., and lie taught writing school. At a 
later date his mind became weakened and nature gradually 
broke up. During these later years he was a resident of 
Sonora, where he lived the solitary life of a bachelor. 
Interested in military affairs, the old soldier joined the 
Tuolumne Eangers. Afterwards he was a member of the 
fire department of Sonora, and almost the last recollec- 
tions that the people retain of him is the spectacle of 
Colonel Tom parading at the head of the firemen, proud 
and erectly consciotis of his imposing figure, and grandly 
bearing the beloved Stars and Stripes, in whose defence 
he had given freely of his best blood. His last years 
were divested of care by the ministrations of kind friends 
and the veteran sank peacefully to rest a few 3'ears ago. 



OTIS GREENWOOD. 

A prominent man was Otis Greenwood, whether re- 
garded from his attainments and prominence as a law- 
yer or his remarkable persistence and success as a practical 
joker. Interesting stories are related of him, among which 
the Knight-Eastabrook duel takes a prominent place. 

Falling out about some trifling dispute and imagining 
that their honor was impugned, two men, H. Knight and 
Eastabrook, residents of the vicinity of Sonora, determined 
to resort to arms for a settlement, ' Eastabrook, once a pop- 
manufacturer of Shaw's Flat, accepted Knight's challenge, 
and choosing pistols as the weapons, began, under Jim 
Stuart's and Jack Cole's fostering care, to perfect them- 
selves in marksmanshijD. To Eastabrook the affair was a 
serious reality; but between his opponent, the two seconds 



HISTOKY OF TUOLUMNE COUNrY. 391 

(Coles and Stuart), the surgeons (Drs. Walker and Claw- 
son), and the bottle-holders (Otis Greenwood and Judge L. 
Quint), a hoax had been arranged which was to include 
the whole town. Meeting on Cannon Hill, in view of the 
entire population, who had been drawn out by the report 
of the interesting event, the principals exchanged shots, 
but as the weapons had been loaded by Major Ball with 
cork bullets covered with tinsel, the damage to life and 
limb was not important. However, as arranged by pre- 
concerted measures. Knight fell, and was carried from the 
field, while his adversary congratulated himself upon 
remaining uninjured and proclaimed himself " High-cocka- 
lorum of Tuolumne County!" The Sheriff appearing at 
this juncture, caused the victorious duelist to seek safety 
in fligfht. But it was not long before the truth of the mat- 
ter becoming known to him, he returned to his old habita- 
tion. 

What added more to the hilarity of the proceeding 
was a mishap to Greenwood. By previous collusion, doses 
of a nauseous and violent medicine had been prepared by 
the physicians to be administered allopathically to such 
of the surrounding crowd whose excited state of mind 
would allow them to mistake jalop for gin or croton for 
cornjuice. By a natural error (or was it the Doctor's 
intention?) Mr. Greenwood himself became the victim, 
and furnished a patient's fee to the man of sells and a 
jest to the community for many days. 

Few who dwelt in Sonora in 1857 have forgotten the 
" Royal Order of G. S., Mighty and Terrible," who held 
meetings in their "Hall of Comparative O-'ations," and 
who were supposed to have charge of the morals of the 
town; but whose chief and only object consisted in origin- 
ating and carrying out practical jokes. 



392 HISTORY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 

The prince of jokers, Lawyer Greenwood, held a promi- 
nent part in their deliberations, and the honored gentleman 
who officiated as the other second in the before mentioned 
duel, was also a star of magnitude. Many of the familiar 
names in Sonora's history were on the list of this unique 
organization; names, it is sad to think, of those who are 
now no more. 

One of the characteristic tricks of this band of humorists 
was the never-to-be-forgotten Honorable Judge Garland 
episode. Miss Annette Ince and her sister, with their com- 
pany of actors, were performing at Valleau's Theater, then 
standing on the corner lot on Washington street next south 
of Mr. Cady's store. Among their numerous admirers was 
one Garland, an inhabitant of San Joaquin County, who 
had followed the Misses Ince on their travels to the mines, 
while under the influence of a tender feeling for one of the 
ladies, as well as being stage-struck to a remarkable de-. 
gree. Aside from these peculiarities, the man was a good- 
natured specimen of the genus " crank." No sooner had 
these facts become known than the " G. S." took him in 
hand, their first care being to obtain his confidence and 
regard. This they efi"ected easiW; and then commenced a 
series of tricks and impositions the like of which were cer- 
tainly never before played upon any man. 'Uj:)on the ojDen- 
ing night of the theater, the unsuspecting Garland was 
seen in the dress circle, seated upon a raised dais, a huge 
wooden sword pendant at his side, a paper cap upon his 
head, and an enormous blue medal, heart-shaped and a 
foot in diameter, uj)on his breast, and bearing the mystic 
letters, G. S. Surrounding him were the brethren of that 
order, each with a wooden sword, and bearing a similar 
badge. These constituted the " Committee of Honor and 
Safety." The effect of this upon the unsuspecting actresses 
was ridiculous beyond description. 



HISTOKY OF TUOLUMNE COUKTY. 393 

After the play was over, G. was taken to the Placer 
Hotel, where he attempted to address an audience gathered 
in the street, but being given a glass of whisky in which 
was a powerful medicine, he soon had to cease; when, 
leaving the stand for the City Hotel, he was pursued by 
the crowd, and taking to his heels, he made quick time to 
the hotel, amid cries of "Hang him!" etc. The exertion 
and the medicine were too much for him, and he remained 
for several days under the kind charge of those good Sa- 
maritans, the "G. S., Mighty and Terrible." During this 
time a new joke was concocted; and the unhappy Garland 
was induced to display his histrionic talents (a weakness 
with him), and to this end a week was spent in drilling him 
in the part of Macbeth, and in preparation for his appear- 
ance before the public. On the stage, he came out at the 
'■dagger scene," dressed in a single garment — a sort of 
smock frock — with his arms and legs painted as the ex- 
uberant fancy of the "G. S." had dictated. All the acces- 
sories were in keeping with the actor, and probably no such 
scene was ever witnessed on any other stage. 

The poor fellow was sent away from Sonora armed with 
a gigantic parchment diploma, ornamented with a seal the 
size of a soup plate, and certifying his good standing in 
the order "G. S." at Sonora, and asking that the imaginary 
society below would take good care of him. This paper he 
was commanded to keep in his possession at all times, and 
to guard it as he would his life, and the dupe actually de- 
prived himself of sleep for more than one night that he 
might be assured of the safety of the precious document. 

Otis Greenwood came to Tuolumne from Massachu- 
setts, and, entering upon the practice of the law, be- 
came prominent and well known throughout the county. 
Although possessed of admirable talents, and achieving 
quite a degree of success, his unfortunate addiction to drink 



394 msTORY OF tuolumne county. 

kept him from the full measure of success which, with 
steadier habits, he would have earned, and brought him to 
the grave, in 1863, at the early age of thirty-four years. 



Rev. Mr. LONG 

It was who broke open the barricade which a creditor — 
Mayor Patrick — had placed before the entrance to his 
church; and afterwards withdrew from his charge because 
the Superintendent of his Sabbath School, and the bell- 
ringer, the senior deacon, and other high dignitaries of his 
church, would play pedro, drink whisky, and attend bull 
fights on Sunday. 



HON. E»WIN A. RODGERS. 

Mr. Rodgers has spent thirty years of an active and suc- 
cessful life in Tuolumne County, having come here in 
1852. Born in the Green Mountain State in 1825, he 
entered Harvard College at a suitable age, and graduated 
duly, having acquired an excellent classical education that 
has served him excellently well throughout all the ensuing 
years. Pursuing legal studies in the oifice of an able 
practitioner. Judge Underwood, he was admitted to the 
Bar, but did not engage at once in the practice of his pro- 
fession, but came to California. 

Spending first a year at Jamestown in mining pursuits, 
he next removed to Sonora, where he has since made his 
home. His law practice began on his admission to the 
Bar of Tuolumne County, which took j)lace June 20, 1854, 
he then entering upon a prosperous and active career, 
which has continued up to the present time with unabated 
vigor. 

Mr. Rodgers' first labors being in mining, he had little 
opportunity to attract the attention which his original 



HISTORY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 395 

genius and undoubted mental powers have since com- 
manded; but about 1853 he began to interest himself in 
political affairs, and in a series of articles upon political 
topics, published in the Sonora Herald, there are the first 
evidences which we have of the remarkable way in which 
he has impressed his individuality upon his surroundings. 

His succeeding career has been that of a very successful 
attorney, who has at times entered upon politics, and who 
has done a great deal of work for the good of his fellow 
citizens. In 1860 the citizens of Tuolumne demonstrated 
their sense of his abilities by electing him to the Legisla- 
ture. In 1869 he became District Attorney, holding that 
office to the general acceptation of the citizens. 

Mr. Rodgers married Miss Henrietta Morrow, a native 
of Massachusetts. 



HENRY SEVENINa. 

The subject of this sketch was born in Germany on June 
8, 1833. He was educated in his native country, from 
which he removed in 1852, coming direct to San Francisco, 
at once settling at Jamestown, where he was engaged in 
mining, and later on followed the same occupation at 
Yorktown. We next find him keeping a store at Campo 
Seco, where he remained till coming to Columbia in 1860. 
Here he was engaged in mercantile pursuits until May 1, 
1872, when he was appointed Wells, Fargo & Co.'s agent, 
and is now carrying on the express and banking business. 
In 1879, he was elected President of the Tuolumne County 
Water Company, which position he now fills with credit to 
his company and honor to himself. It can be truly said 
of Mr. Seveniug that he is beloved by his family and friends 
and honored and respected by the community in which he 
lives. Married Louise Wedel on June 17, 1860. Johanna 
L., Frederick, Lulu and Alma are his children. 



396 HISTOEY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 



HENRY THOMPSON. 



This pioneer settler was born in the Duchy of Schleswig- 
Holstein on July 20, 1825. He went to sea when twelve 
years old, and followed a mariner's life till he arrived in 
this State in the Fall of 1849. He remained in San Fran- 
cisco and was boating on the bay for a short time, then 
started for the mines, making a halt at Spanish Bar, on 
the American river. He returned to the city, where he 
engaged in business till he was burned out, and then went 
to Vallecito, but again returned to San Francisco to go to 
the mines at Mission Bar, where he remained during the 
Winter of 1852. During the Winter he went to Nevada 
City and purchased provisions, and had to pay ten cents a 
pound to get them hauled twelve miles, that being the dis- 
tance to his camp, In May, 1853, he came to his present 
place of residence, near Tuttletown, where he has since 
lived, and has engaged in farming, mining and raising carp. 
He built the first carp pond in the county, and now has 
three ponds with a school of about three hundred fish. 
Mr. Thompson married Mary Mills, May 1, 1853. She is 
a native of England, and was born September 30, 1833. 
Henry A., Mary E., Belle C, Frederick M. and Katie are 
their children. 



JOHN P. JONES. 

Concerning Nevada's millionaire Senator and the friend 
of President Arthur, Tuolumne knows a great deal. Liv- 
ing here in the " fifties," he figured in the celebrated mock 
trial of Barnes vs. Stuart, concerning ownership of a ranch. 
Otis Greenwood was Judge. The verdict of the jury, fill- 
ing a dozen sheets of foolscap, gave Stuart three feet of 
the surface, and to Barnes the "remainder, to the center 
of the earth." 



HISTORY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 897 

Eev. S. S. HARMON 

Conducted the Methodist Church at Sonora for ten years; 
but now, in charge of the College at "Washington Corners, 
has devoted himself to the cause of education, with good 
results. Lately, he is said to be contemplating a removal of 
the concern to Berkeley. 



Rev. O. p. FITZGERALD 

Smote the ungodly for a while in Tuolumne; at a later 
time to have charge of a so-called College at Vacaville, and 
later still at Santa Rosa. At one time his political lean- 
ings placed him in the position of Superintendent of Schools 
for the State of California. 



S. S. BRADFORD. 

Mr. Bradford is a native of the old Pine Tree State — a 
State that has given to California more vigorous, energetic 
workers and enterprising pioneers than any other section 
of proportionate population. His earlier years being passed 
in Maine, he removed westward, coming to California in 
the year 1850, and spent a few years in mining in various 
portions of this county, notably at Rattlesnake Creek, Big 
Oak Flat, etc. His travels led eastward again, and we find 
him somewhat later in Maine, where he resided for several 
years, coming back to California in 1858, and spending a 
portion of the ensuing years in Columbia, but coming to 
Sonora in 1867, where he has resided ever since, and has 
become an influential and most valued citizen. 

Mr. Bradford has been identified with the lumber trade 
for many years, in which his business principles have met a 
suitable reward. He has been owner, in part, of the largest 
sawmill in the county, situated some fifteen miles east of 



398 HISTOKY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 

Sonora. He has met discouragements, such as losses by fire, 
with the most becoming courage, always rising superior to 
calamity. At the present time, his business is connected 
with a steam planing-mill in Sonora, where he manufactures 
all kinds of mouldings, etc., does mill-work in all its 
branches, makes sash, doors, blinds, boxes, and numerous 
other articles, and conducts a large trade in lumber, his 
business^ extending over the entire county. Mr. Bradford 
married Miss Nancy P. Davis, in 1849, their children being 
Alice (now Mrs. Street), Ada H. (wife of Frank Street, 
Esq.), and William Frederick, at present a student in the 
University of California. 



COLONEL FRANK CHEATHAM, 

A pronounced Southerner, full of courage and manliness, 
was a prominent actor in the hanging of Jim Hill by the 
mob at Sonora, in the time of Sheriff Work. At one time 
he was a merchant in Stockton, and later, turning up as a 
Confederate General in the war of Secession. He now 
lives in Tennessee, a planter. 



PAUL K. HUBBS 

Was a useful citizen in every respect. After serving the 
people of Tuolumne in several important offices, he became 
State Superintendent of Public Instruction in 1854. Was 
married to Miss Maggie Gilcrest in 1857. 



ROBERT McGARVEY, 
A '49er, was Chairman of the first Board of Supervisors. 
He married Miss Charlotte L. Davis in 1854. With his 
cultivated and refined family he resides at Ukiah, Mendo- 
cino County, where he holds the office of Superior Judge. 



HISTORY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 399 

CALVIN B. McDonald, 

Of Scotch descent, a newspaper writer of considerable 
ability, and of great, though misdirected, energy, had 
once in him the promise of a leading man. He has been 
connected as editorial writer with many of the secondary 
newspapers of California and Oregon, and also lectures 
some, indifferently well; was in Sonora during war times, 
doing work for the American Flag, whose radical principles 
just suited him. 



A. COLBY, 

Who is classed as one of the most successful and able of 
the pocket miners of Tuolumne, is a native of Bucksport, 
Maine, having been born there in 1840. A seafaring life 
was his choice, which he pursued from the age of eleven 
until his coming to California, which took place in 1864. 

Spending three subsequent years in various cities in Cali- 
fornia and Oregon, Mr. Colby finally began mining at Table 
Mountain, so continuing until he removed, in 1871, to So- 
nora. Here he commenced pocket mining in leased claims, 
his first labors having been done upon his present rich 
location, where he worked for two years, afterwards con- 
tinuing the search upon adjoining claims, but finally re- 
turning to the original claim, which he has purchased, and 
has continued working up to the present time. This mine, 
which is known as the "Big Nugget," is situated near the 
head of Washington street, and is upon the same lead as 
the Bonanza Mine of J. G. Divoll, and is considered to be 
one of the richest claims that was ever opened. 

Personally Mr. Colby is an extremely popular man, and 
bis good fortune is being hailed by all as the the proper 
reward for years of arduous labor. 



400 HISTORY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 

JAMES W. COFFROTH, 

The life and soul' of Columbia for years, the originator of 
the Columbia and Stanislaus Ditch, and the promoter of 
nearly every enterprise of the day, was born in Lancaster 
County, Pennsylvania. Before he was twenty-one he had 
learned the printer's trade and was already foreman of a 
printing office. He came to California in 1849, and to 
Sonora in '51, where he was employed by Dr. Gunn as 
writer on the Sonora Herald. His taste was to poetry, and 
he published in the Herald and the Columbia Gazette a con- 
siderable quantity of that kind of literature, rather medium 
in quality. Practicing law, later on he entered politics, 
and, aided by his popularity, overrode all competitors 
excepting J. M. Mandeville, with whom he had to divide 
the honors; they holding the State Senatorship alternately 
for several years. Later still, Mr. Coffroth left the county, 
after achieving many signal successes and rising to the 
highest wave of prosperity. His latpr history is identified 
with that of the State which he served. 



MAJOR P. L. SOLOMON, 

" King Solomon," Sheriff, came from Tennessee. He was 
a hatter at first, then Mexican war soldier, rising to the 
rank of Major. Democrat in politics. Did excellently 
well as Sheriff. Quiet, far-seeing, energetic. He after- 
wards became U. S. Marshal in San Francisco, dying in 
1863. 



E. L. CHRISTMAN,# 

A steady, moral t^ pe-setter, partner with Dr. Gunn in the 
Sonora Herald, attended to the mechanical department, 
made his fortune, and selling out, went East to reside. 



HISTORY OF TCOLUMNE COUNTY. 401 

W. G. RUDORFF. 

Among the pioneers of '49, is the one whose name ap- 
pears at the head of this sketch. Mr. Rudorff is a native 
of Prussia, and was born May 3, 1825. Mr. Rudorff rounded 
the Horn on the old ship "Talisman," landing in San Fran- 
cisco on September 12, 1849. Here he remained until 
February, then went to the mines at Dutch Bar, near Co- 
loma. After mining here during the Summer season, and 
then working and prospecting in various mining districts 
thereabouts, he bought a ranch at Mokelumne Hill, in 
1851, on which he settled. This farm he sold in 1852, and 
in the Summer of that year settled at Springfield, in this 
county, where 'he kept the old Union Hotel, then settling 
at Sonora in 1860. On September 12th of this year Mr. 
Rudorff will have been a resident of the State thirty-three 
years, and of Sonora twenty-two years. He married, while 
residing at Springfield, Henrietta Schleicher, a native of 
Saxe-Weimar, Germany, on July 23, 1854. They have four 
boys and four girls. 



J. M. JONES, 

A celebrated lawyer of New Orleans, came here early, and 
was a delegate to the Monterey Convention with Ben 
Moore and others, in 1849. Died in San Jose in 1851, 
while Judge of the United States District Court. 

HENRY P. BARBER, 

English, but came young to this country and studied law 
with John Morrill, the celebrated jurist. Settling in Tuol- 
umne at a time when law was at a discount, he became clerk 
in a store. Later he opened an office in Sonora, and be- 
came at once prominent among her famous lawyers, and 



402 HISTORY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 

was elected District Attorney. He was a high-toned and 
cultivated gentleman, who possessed talents of the highest 
order, second to none in the State, says Mr. Dorsey. 
Leaving Tuolumne for a wider field, he settled in San 
Francisco, practicing his profession, and died there. 



PATKICK KELLY 

Was born in Ireland, on the 25th day of August, 1849. 
He came to this State from his native country in 1867, and 
settled at Columbia, in this county. Here he formed a 
partnership with his brother, in the livery business. He 
settled at Sonora in 1871, and in 1874 purchased an interest 
in the Pioneer Livery Stables, and has been one of its pro- 
prietors to the present time. 

Mr. Kelly married Miss Mary Riordan. 



THOMAS J. WITT, 

The present District Attorney of Tuolumne County, is a 
Tennesseean by birth. Eesiding first in Rea County, Ten- 
nessee, and later in Arkansas, he crossed the Plains in 
1857, and settled near Sacramento. He studied law with 
Judge Cross, of Visalia, during his six years' residence in 
Tulare County, and on coming to Sonora in 1878 he com- 
pleted his legal studies in the office of Hon. Caleb Dorsey. 
Being admitted to the Bar in 1878, he was the next year 
elected to the responsible position which he now holds. 



JAMES MILLS, 

Banker at Columbia, member of the firm of James Mills & 
Co., was a very estimable gentleman. Died at Sing-Sing, 
New York, March 18, 1854, aged thirty-seven years. 



HISTORY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 403 

SAMUEL H. DWINELLE 

Was another attorney who settled here in early days. En- 
tering first into partnership with J.. M. Huntington, the 
firm enjoyed a large practice. Eemoving to San Francisco 
Mr. Dwindle rose steadily in his profession, taking a high 
stand as a reputable counsellor, and finally became Judge 
of the Fifteenth District Court in that city. He is still 
living, an ornament to the Bar and the community. 



GEORGE S. EVANS, 

Pennsylvanian, but went to Texas in early life, and was a 
soldier in the Mexican War. Coming to Tuolumne, he ran 
for the office of County Clerk and achieved it, being on 
the Democratic ticket. He was an excellent business man 
and born politician. Again County Clerk in 1858, he rose 
to the State Legislatorship in 1864. Removing to Stock- 
ton, he has held the latter office for San Joaquin County 
and achieved prominence; has been many times mentioned 
as a possible candidate for Governor. That he will achieve 
that, or a higher oflSce, is not improbable, as he is still in 
the vigor of life, and withal exceedingly popular. 



CHARLES L. HARPER. 

The subject of this sketch was born in Philadelphia, 
December 16, 1822, and resided there until 1853, when he 
came to California, by way of the Isthmus, and arrived in 
San Francisco October 20, 1853. From San Francisco he 
went to the redwoods of San Mateo County, and remained 
there until May 9, 1854, and then removed to Big Oak 
Flat, where he has resided since that time. He mined 



404 HISTORY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 

about eight years at Big Oak Flat and vicinity, and has 
followed his trade of carpenter since. He married Ellen 
McLaughlin, in 1872, and has two children, named Edwin 
F. and Charles F. • 



C. BURDEN. 

Born in England, in 1823, Mr. Burden was early ap- 
prenticed to the cabinet-maker's trade. His father dying 
when the son was but fifteen years of age, he was com- 
pelled, notwithstanding his youth, to take upon himself the 
support of the family. Marrying Miss Caroline Hellier, in 
1840, the young couple set out for America, coming in 
1853 to San Francisco. Mining for two years at Brown's 
Flat, Mr. Burden next came to Sonora, and ojoened the 
furniture establishment which he still conducts. 

The names of his children are: Elizabeth N., Charles 
Henry, William Frederick Gr. Another, Carrie Elizabeth, 
died, much lamented, January 11, 1882. 



J. A. GOODWIN. 

Mr. Goodwin says: "I was born near to Boston, Lin- 
conshire, England. Emigrated to the United States in 
1844. Was then eighteen years of age. Made my way to 
the town of Farmiugton, Ontario County, N. Y. There 
went to work on a farm for Thomas Elwood Smith, who 
taught me to milk cows, rake and bind grain, and all work 
to be done on a farm. I had made no bargain for wages, 
and in the Fall he paid me $9.00 jDcr month. He then ad- 
vised me to go to school in the Winter, telling me I 
seemed to be in need of schooling, and I could stay with 
him and do chores for my board. I took his advice, went 



HISTCRT OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 405 

to school and was put in a class with small shavers, felt a 
good deal ashamed, but stayed with it until Sirring. The 
schoolmarm then told me I had learned pretty well, and 
had better not stop there. In that school were some large 
boys and girls who were in the back part of the arithmetic, 
while I was in the first part. I thought if I could ever 
catch up with them I would be all right, but I did not 
much expect to. The next Summer I went to work for the 
same man, and to school again in the Winter. The same 
thing was repeated the next Summer and Winter. I had 
now caught up with the large boys and girls, and had saved 
what little money I had earned, so I went to the Canan- 
daigua Academy the next Summer, and in the Winter com- 
menced teaching school. The following Summer I went 
to the Academy again, and taught school in the Winter; 
and the same thing was repeated the third Summer and 
Winter. I will remark that the first school I attended, 
where the Ig^rge boys and girls were so far ahead of 
me, I taught afterwards, and some of the same boys and 
girls came to my school. In the Fall of 1850 I went 
to Wisconsin and taught there for three seasons, and in the 
Spring of 1853 came across the plains to California, where 
I arrived in the Fall, and went to work at the Mountain 
Pine Mill, staying there about a 5'ear, and then located on 
this place on the second day of November, 1854, where I 
have been up to the present time, which makes twenty- 
seven years. The first seven years I was a bachelor, and 
the last twenty have been married. On the place are some 
fig trees planted by my own hand ^mere twigs) which are 
now nine feet in circumference. 



406 HISTORY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 

JOHN B. DOUGLASS. 

Mr. Douglass, familiarly and widely known as "Jack," 
was born in New York City, in August, 1830, He came to 
California in July, 1849, arriving in Tuolumne in 1852. 
Establishing himself in the saloon business in Columbia, 
he soon afterwards became Agent for M. J. Dooley, the 
Manager of the stage lines. His place of business was on 
the corner of Fulton and Main streets, and was -known as 
the " Douglass" saloon. Mr. Douglass had the ill fortune 
to be burned out three times in the course of his residence 
in Columbia, namely, in 1854, 1857, and 1862. In 1869 he 
removed to Stockton, where he is engaged in keeping the 
popular saloon of the Yosemite House . During Mr. Doug- 
lass' residence in Columbia he enjoyed the confidence of 
his fellow-citizens to a remarkable extent, having held suc- 
cessively the offices of Chief Engineer of the Fire Depart- 
ment, President of the Board of Trustees, and finally School 
Trustee, the two latter offices having been filled by him 
during two terms each. It may be mentioned in this con- 
nection that he was a warm friend of the lamented Coffroth, 
his intimacy extending over a long period, during which 
they were close companions in every respect. 

Mr. Douglass, in 1853, married Miss Ellen Dart, and 
has two children, boys, one aged 22 and one 19 years. 



OTIS PEREIN. 

Mr. Perrin was born in Mansfield, Massachusetts, in 
1826. Starting for California, he arrived in Tuolumne 
County in September, 1849, and mined for a time at Haw- 
kins' Bar, ultimately removing to Jacksonville in the Win- 
ter of the above year; then entering into partnership with 
J. L. Cogswell, also a noted pioneer, they built the Wash- 



HISTORY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 407 

ington Hotel, at Big Oak Flat, remaining proprietors of 
that inn for a number of years. When, in 1859, the Golden 
Rock Water Ditch was commenced by Messrs. Murphy, 
Watts & Co., Mr. Perrin took a contract for building the 
first thirteen miles o? that raceway for the sum of $152,000, 
completing the section in one year. 

In 1862 the gentleman was elected to the State Legisla- 
ture. Afterwards he became Superintendent of the Golden 
Rock Ditch, so remaining until the high flume fell, which 
put a stop to the company's business. Subsequently Mr. 
Perrin began to work the Rutherford .Quartz Mine, occu- 
pying himself in that manner until his appointment, in 
1869, as Receiver of the United States Land Office at Stock- 
ton, his appointment having been continued by Presidents 
Grant, Hayes and Garfield. 



DOCTOR BROWN. 

The above named gentleman, who was once an influential 
resident of Sonora in early times, and who now holds the 
important position of Resident Physician at the State In- 
sane Asylum at Stockton, came to this country in 1850, 
He was born in Virginia, in 1818. The Doctor commenced 
practicing in Sonora in 1852, in partnership with Doctor 
Thomas Kendall. Their practice proved extremely suc- 
cessful, and within a year or two they made a contract to 
care for the indigent sick of the county. At that time the 
County Hospital stood wh«re Mr. J. Hall's house now 
stands, says the Doctor, who mentions other gentlemen as 
having been in medical practice in Sonora at about that 
time: Dr. Cyprian Cross, born in North Carolina; Dr. 
Murphy, now of San Francisco; Dr. J. J. Franklin, who 
died in 1875; Dr. Kendall, who afterwards became Visiting 



408 HISTORY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 

Physician to the Insane Asylum; Dr. "William H. Bruner, 
now of San Francisco; and Dr. Marshall, who went to 
Russia and entered the service of that government, and 
died, after participating in the Crimean war. 



JUDGE JOSEPH M. CAVIS 

Came to Tuolumne County in February, 1854, beginning 
his career by mining for a time. In September, 1855, he 
commenced the practice of law in Columbia, and attained 
a high reputation as an honorable member of the Bar. In 
1859 Mr. Cavis was chosen Justice of the Peace, and, still 
advancing in honors, became State Senator in 1862, and 
finally assumed a position on the Judicial bench. He was 
elected Judge in October, 1863; continued in that position 
until 1870, at which date he removed to Stockton. There 
he practiced law until his appointment as Postmaster, in 
1876, which last position he still retains. 



CAPTAIN ALONZO GREEN. 

Captain Green arrived in Sonora on the first day of 
August, 1849. His companion on this trip to the place 
was James Lane, He tells the story of his travels some- 
what as follows: He left San Francisco on the schooner 
Favorite, proceeding in her to Stockton, paying twenty-five 
dollars for the j)assage, and providing his own bedding and 
food. Getting into a so-called stage, he next proceeded to 
Sonora, by way of Taylor's Ferry. This stage, the Captain 
says, was merely a common wagon having hay in the bot- 
tom on which the passengers' feet might rest, and being 
otherwise totally devoid of comforts or conveniences. At 



HISTORY or TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 409 

a certain point upon their route breakfast was procured. 
The hotel which provided it was a large tent, whose utmost 
resources in the way of food extended only to whisky, 
hard-bread and pork and beans. Proceeding onward, the 
stage soon after passed the diggings at Woods' Crossing, 
then the great resort of the miners, and where not fewer 
than two thousand men, says the Captain, stood in the 
water, engaged with pan and rocker. Contrary to the gen- 
eral feeling of enthusiasm, the new arrival promptly decided 
that he would never be a miner. On arrival in Sonora, the 
Captain made inquiries of Major Elkins as to where new- 
comers were expected to lodge, and was referred to the 
ground as a proper place of deposit for the human frame. 
The following morning Mr. Green took a survey of the 
place, which resulted in his finding Joshua Holden, who 
had just established himself in business, occupying for that 
purpo?.e a tent. Directly after this, the two men (acquaint- 
ances at a former date) formed a partnership, and built the 
first house which was ever constructed in Sonora. The 
new structure was of logs, eighty by twenty feet, and was 
covered with canvas. Entering into trade, the two cleared 
within twelve months no less than two hundred thousand 
dollars. Other years more or less successful were passed 
in Sonora, and in 1858 the Captain came to San Francisco. 
During his stay in Sonora the firm of Green & Holden was 
the moat important one then doing business in the Southern 
Mines, it including the conduct of a bakery, as well as the 
store containing a miscellaneous assortment of dry goods, 
groceries, clothing, miners' implements, etc., which were 
suited to the demands of a community like Sonora. This 
extensive business house was burned out in the great fire 
of '52, the partners losing more than forty thousand dollars. 
Captain Green is now a resident of San Francisco, where 
he performs the duties of Superintendent of Washington- 



410 HISTORY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 

street "Wharf, an office under tlie charge of the State Gov- 
ernment. 

His living children are five in number: John Henry and 
Adeline Savilla, who, with Austin, now deceased, were born 
in Sonora; and Charles D., Frank M., and Verdenal N., 
who were born in San Francisco. 



JUDGE C. H. CHAMBERLAIN. 

The above gentleman, now Receiver in the United States 
Land Office at San Francisco, lived in Columbia in early 
years, when that town was one of the liveliest camps of 
\Thich the mines of California could boast. 

The Judge was born in the State of Maine, coming thence 
in the Summer of 1849. He mined for a time on the Mo- 
kelumne River, going in October of that year to Monte- 
zuma, Tuolumne County. In the Spring of 1850 he worked 
in Soldiers' Gulch, near Tuttletown, and still later at 
Dusty Bar and Grand Bar, on the Stanislaus River, and at 
Little Garrote. In the year 1851 he was at Tuttletown, 
mining as before, and went in the Fall of that year to Co- 
lumbia. His residence in the latter place was a fact of 
importance to the community at large, his public and pri- 
vate acts identifying him with the highest interests of the 
town. Concluding his residence in Columbia, he went in 
1857 to San Joaquin County, where, in that year, he be- 
came Whig candidate for the State Senatorship, against J. 
M. Mandeville. His public service in Columbia embraced 
three years as Justice of the Peace, which office he held 
with honor and credit. In 1861 the Judge became State 
Senator, and in 1865 Assemblyman. In the Fall of 1866 
he was appointed to his present position in the Land Office, 
by President Johnson, and has been reappointed to that 



HISTORY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 411 

situation by Presidents Grant and Hayes, having served 
sixteen years in all. 

Judge Chamberlain now resides in his pleasant home in 
Oakland, with his wife, nee Miss Susan G. Wilson, also a 
native of Maine, and who has been previously mentioned 
as having taught the first school ever established in Colum- 
bia. The pair have one son, Colonel William H. Cham- 
berlain, of the National Guards of the State of California, 
and one daughter, Carrie. 

It may be mentioned that the Judge is a member of the 
Tuolumne Re-Union, the State of Maine Association, and 
of the California Pioneers. 



CAPTAIN A. B. BEAUVAIS. 

This gentleman, a well known and respected citizen of 
the section where he resides, is a native of South Dart- 
mouth, Massachusetts, having been born in July, 1828. 
Having prepared himself for a seafaring life by the study 
of surveying and navigation, he went to sea in 1842, and 
continued so employed until 1851. Arriving then in San 
Francisco, he there engaged in mercantile affairs for awhile, 
until when, in the Fall of 1851, he removed to Carson Hill, 
Calaveras County, one year later going to Columbia, where 
he has since remained. Mining and the construction of 
ditches occupied the Captain's time until 1870, when he 
was elected County Surveyor, and also received the ap- 
pointment of United States Deputy Mineral Surveyor of 
the District, which latter position he still retains. 

He married Miss Vinnie Andrews, a native of Bangor, 
Maine, by this union there being two children living, Addie 
and Katie. 



412 HISTORY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 

H. B. McNeill, 

Previously referred to, furnishes these additional facts in 
regard to his interesting career: He was born in Oxford, 
New Yorii, April 4, 1820. In 1849 he went to California, 
via Cape Horn, on the brig Mary Tucker, arriving in San 
Francisco on July 6. Stopping but a short time at San 
Francisco, he proceeded to Tuolumne County, and mined 
for awhile on Sullivan's Creek. In 1850 he went to the 
Sandwich Islands for a jjeriod of four months. Returning 
to California, Mr. McNeill made two trips to Panama, and 
in 1852 again went to Tuolumne County, there receiving 
the position of Deputy, under County Clerk W. H. Ford. 
Having been admitted to the Bar before coming West, 
he commenced practicing law at Sonora in the Winter of 
1852, which he continued until 1872. In 1871 Mr. McNeill 
was elected County Judge, taking his seat in 1872, remain- 
ing on the bench four years and resuming practice in 1876. 
He resided in Tuolumne County two years longer, from 
there going to San Francisco to enter the Revenue Service, 
in which capacity he still continues. 



ALEXANDER STAIR, 

Who was born in York, York County, Pennsylvania, on 
February 9, 1828, came to California in November, 1849. 
Locating first at Sonora, and stopping there for a brief 
period, he went from there to Mariposa County. Remain- 
ing in the latter place for a short time, he returned to 
Tuolumne County, this time taking up his residence at 
Chinese Camp, in 1854, his occupation being Stage Agent, 
which place he filled for nine years. Leaving Chinese 



HISTORY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 413 

Camp in 1863, he came to San Francisco and engaged in 
mercantile pursuits, at which place he jet remains, at 
present being connected with the firm of J. Wagner & Co., 
Nos. 105 and 107 Mission street. 



JOHN A. SAMPSON, 

Born in Kingston, Plymouth County, Massachusetts, Oc- 
tober 3, 1831, came to California in 1852, Proceeding 
almost immediately to Tuolumne County, he engaged in 
mining in the Corral Ranch Claims, situated on Curtis* 
Creek. Mr. Sampson was one of the proprietors of a tun- 
nel which was run into Table Mountain, called Scooperville 
Tunnel, and which was completed to a length of 3,500 feet. 
His sojourn in the county extended over a period of twelve 
years, during which time he was one of the originators of 
the Republican party, in connection with Dr. Gunn. In 
1864 Mr. Sampson came to San Francisco, and for the past 
fifteen years has been employed in the Custom House, at 
the present time holding the responsible position of Assist- 
ant Cashier. 



R. A. ROBINSON, 

Born at Patterson, Putnam County, New York, March 29, 
1813. Came to California, arriving November 7, 1852, via 
Panama. Remained in San Francisco until about March 
1, 1853. Went to Sacramento, taking a position in the 
banking house of D. O. Mills & Co. , remaining however 
only two months, going from there to Tuolumne County, 
engaging in mining in the vicinity of Columbia. In the 
Summer of 1853 he became Secretary of the Tuolumn© 



414: HISTORY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 

Water Company. In the Fall of 1855 he was elected County 
Clerk, his opponent being G-eneral Evans, and held the 
office for two years. In 1859 Mr. E. left Tuolumne County 
to take charge of Lloyd Tevis & Co.'s ditch, and lived in 
Knight's Ferry and vicinity for two years. Since his de- 
parture from Stanislaus County, Mr. R. has been placed in 
numerous positions of trust; especially may be mentioned 
his connection with various copper interests in Calaveras 
and some of the southern counties, where his sound judg- 
ment saved his patrons thousands of dollars which might 
otherwise have been uselessly involved. For the past nine 
years he has been in the office of the Superintendent of 
Streets and Public Highways, occupying the position of 
Chief Deputy. Though taking the post under Republican 
administration, such were his capability and efficiency that 
with each change of party the incumbent of the office — the 
Superintendent of Public Streets — has deemed it desirable 
to retain Mr. R, in the capacity of Chief Deputy. 



THE MACOMBER BROTHERS. 

These old settlers, and well known residents of this 
county, are natives of Utica, New York. The elder, George 
Macomber, was instructed in mercantile pursuits at several 
of the prominent business houses in New York City, and 
since that time has been engaged in business in St. Louis 
and New Orleans. 

The three brothers came to California in 1850, crossing 
the plains, a part of the journey having been made in com- 
pany with Holliday's, Dr. Knox's and Crow's trains. They 
settled at Stockton, where they were in business for a time, 
then removing to the mines, where they commenced mining 
for gold at Angle's Camp, Jamestown and Shaw's Flat. 



HISTORY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 415 

George and Frederick Macomber were also among the first 
engaged in using the hydraulic on their mines in Amador 
County, where they worked off and on for twelve years, 
finally permanently settling at Sonora, where they have 
since lived. These gentlemen were in company with Mr, 
Brown in the ownershij) of the well known Big Table 
Mountain Lead, which at one time paid as high as $16 to 
the single pan of earth, and 100 ounces of gold per day. 
They also owned in the Mexican Claim, purchased of May, 
Solomon and Antonio, in Tennessee Gulch. The ground 
was yellow gravel, but, notwithstanding this fact, paid at 
times from $5 to $50 to the pan, and some pieces valued at 



George and Frederick Macomber are now located in the 
north part of Sonora, where their pickle, cider and vinegar 
works are established, producing the finest quality of 
champagne cider, pickles and cider vinegar on the Pacific 
Coast, and shipping largely througoat the Pacific States 
and Territories. 



J. P. TIBBITS, M. D. 

This old settler of Tuolumne County is a native of Can- 
andaigua, Ontario County, New York, and was born May 
2, 3806. In 1828 he commenced the study of medicine at 
Buffalo, New York. Ha located at Steubenville, Ohio, in 
1830, and in 1834 removed to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, 
where he practiced his profession four years, then gradu- 
ated at the Jefferson Medical College, in Philadelj)hia, in 
1836. He resided in Pittsburg until 1845, at which time a 
fire destroyed all his property, and he then located at Cin- 
cinnati, Ohio. In 1849 he came to this State, arriving in 
San Francisco on the 5th of July of that year. He at once 
went to Big Bar, on the middle fork of the American River 



416 HISTORY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 

where he mined and practiced his profession. In the Fall 
of that year he returned East, and in the following Spring, 
with his family, again came to California, settling in So- 
nora, on the 23d of August, 1850. In the Fall of 1851 he 
built his Barnum House, near the head of Washington 
street, which hotel he kept until it was burned, in 1853. 
He remained in Sonora, living with his son-in-law. Captain 
Green, of the City Hotel, until the Spring of 1854, then 
moving to San Francisco. After a residence of two years 
in that place, he went to Iowa Hill, Placer County, where 
he lived until 1862, then going to Idaho, thence to Mon- 
tana and Washington Territories, but afterwards returned 
to San Francisco, where he lived three years. He came to 
Columbia in 1872, where he devoted his time to mining and 
the practice of his profession. He married Rachel o" 
hanna Bartlett, a native of Jefferson County, Ohio. This 
estimable lady, with Mrs. Holden and Mrs. Brodigan, were 
the only American female residents of Sonora in the early 
part of 1849. Mrs. Tibbits was a lady of refinement, hold- 
ing advanced ideas, and much respected by all who knew 
her, not only for the many excellent personal qualities, but 
as one of the pioneer mothers of California. 



A. B. PRESTON. 

Judge Preston was born in Hartford, Connecticut, on 
October 3, 1829, receiving there his primary education. 
He reached the age of fifteen years, when, going to New 
York City, he there engaged as a clerk, which occupation 
he followed until his departure for California. He arrived 
in San Francisco on March 9, 1849, staying in that city 
until 1850, when he came to Tuolumne, settling at Colum- 



HISTORY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 417 

bia. Mining for a time at Columbia and at Jacksonville, 
lie then moved to Campo Seco in January, 1851, where he 
became Constable and Interpreter for Judge Halsey's 
Court. He moved to Jamestown in 1852, where he has 
since lived. He was elected Justice of the Peace in 1856 
and was his own successor up to 1878, We do not remem- 
ber of ever having recorded another instance where a per« 
son has held the same office continuously for twenty-two 
consecutive years. In 1856 Mr. Preston was appointed by 
Governor Neely Johnson as Notary Public, and has held 
that office also up to the present time. He was elected one 
of the Supervisors of this county in 1878, and is the pre- 
sent incumbent. He married Maggie C. Donovan, on May 
21, 1870. They have three children living: Howard, 
Gracie and Pearl, and have buried three others. 



H. M. KOSEKRANS 

Was born in Saratoga, New York, January 24, 1829. In 
1852 he came to California, locating in Tuolumne County, 
and for one year kept a store at Kincoole's Flat. Next he 
engaged in mining, but concluded to give that up to folio w 
his trade of painting. As an example of the prices ob- 
tained for provisions in those days, for a load of flour, 
which in 1852 Mr. Rosekrans brought from Knight's Ferry, 
he received $200 a barrel. After over three years' resi- 
dence in Sonora, he removed to San Francisco, still follow- 
ing his trade, all his undertakings in the latter place having 
been attended with success. 



418 HISTORY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 

J. w. McCarthy. 

The subject of this sketch was born in Columbia, on May 
5, 1853. He resided here till 1870, when he moved to 
Stanislaus, He was elected Minute Clerk of the Assem- 
bly in 1875 and 1877, and was elected County Clerk in 
1877, and was his own successor for three terms. He is 
still County Clerk, and a nominee of the Democratic Con- 
vention for Clerk of the Supreme Court of the State. His 
brother, C. F. McCarthy, is now the nominee to succeed 
him as County Clerk. He is not married. 



JUDGE CHARLES H. RANDALL. 

Judge Randall, now the editor of the Union Democrat, 
and a resident of Sonora during some thirty years, and, 
withal, one of the most widely known and honored of all 
those who have owned Tuolumne as their home, has kindly 
put the publisher of this book in possession of a few plain 
facts relating to his life, of which the following are sub- 
joined : 

The Judge was born in Providence, Rhode'Island, June 
7,1824. Went from there to New York City in 1844, 
from New York City to Tennessee in 1846, coming to Cal- 
ifornia around Cape Horn, landing in San Francisco Sep- 
tember 9, 1849. In that year he mined at Weber Creek, a 
tributary of the American River. In 1850 he went to Cen- 
tral America, spent the Winter in Nicaragua, returned to 
California in 1851, and came to Chili Camp, Tuolumne 
County, in that Spring. Followed mining in the county 
until the Fall of 1853. In October, 1853, he.entered the 
Sheriff's Office, under Major P. L. Solomon, continuing 



HI8T0BY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 419 

■with him during the term, or until the Spring of 1856. 
Solomon was appointed United States Marshal in 1857, and 
Mr. Kandall was Deputy in his office until the Fall of 1858, 
when he returned to Sonora, and entered the mercantile 
business with the late James Lane, doing, business under 
the firm name of Lane & Randall until 186^. In 1861 he 
was elected Supervisor, and served six years. In 1867 he 
was elected County Judge, serving from June 1, 1868, to 
January 1, 1872. In 1869 he bought the Union-Democrat, 
conducting it until August, 1875, when he sold it and 
moved to San Francisco. In two years he came back, and 
bought into the Democrat again, where he now is. In 
politics he was originally a Whig. After the Presidential 
election of 1852 he was identified with no political party 
until 1856, since which time he has supported the Demo- 
cratic party. Most of the time since 1856 he. has been an 
active partizan, and has taken much interest in the welfare 
of the county. The Judge was one of the mass in early 
times, and saw many of the exciting scenes of those days. 
He says: "I hope to always live in the county, for it is my 
home, and all other places are strange to me compared with 
it." It may not be out of place to say that he has been an 
active Odd Fellow since 1846; was Grand Master of the 
State of California in 1878-79, and has rejDresented the 
Grand Encampment of California in the Sovereign Grand 
Lodge, I. 0. O. F., for five sessions. 



JOHN H. GRADY 

Was born in San Francisco, July 23, 1852, and in 1855 re- 
moved to Yankee Hill, Tuolumne County. His early edu- 
cation was acquired at Shaw's Flat and Springfield, at 



420 HISTORY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 

which places he lived alternately until 1864, returning then 
to his native city. At the age of fifteen Mr. Grady learned 
the upholstering trade, and remained in the furniture busi- 
ness until elected to the office of Tax Collector, in 1881, 
and of which office he is the present incumbent. 

Mr. Grady was one of the only three Democrats elected 
on his ticket, and is the youngest executive officer in the 
City and County of San Francisco. 



DR. W. P. GIBBONS 

Was born in Wilmington, Delaware, April 19, 1812. At 
the age of twelve he entered a printing office to learn type 
setting, where he remained for three years. Subsequently 
he was connected with the Franklin Type Foundry, one of 
the largest establishments of the kind in the United States. 

Leaving the foundry, he went into business for himself, 
but failing health obliged him to give it up. After living 
on a farm for two years, he sufficiently recovered his health 
to take charge of a young ladies' seminary in Poughkee23sie, 
New York. His health again failing, the Doctor came to 
California, practicing medicine in San Francisco, having 
graduated in that branch in 1847, at the University of New 
York. 

San Francisco's cool climate not agreeing with him, he 
removed to Tuolumne County in 1857, with headquarters at 
Columbia, Dr. Gibbons j^racticed here successfully for 
thirteen years, changing his residence, at the end of that 
period, to Alameda, where he has since remained, being 
one of the prominent medical men of that place. 



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GEOLOGY AND MINING. 425 



GEOLOGY AND MURING. 



Since the earliest explorations by miners, much specula- 
tion has been rife, and uncounted theories have been set 
forth concerning the geological formation of these hills 
and valleys, and finally a vast deal of knowledge has been 
collected concerning them; and if this knowledge has not 
resulted as men have insisted it should, in rendering the 
discovery of gold certain and easy, it has at least been of 
benefit in a scientific way. 

Many men, with real or imagined scientific knowledge, 
have given their thoughts to the solution of the great ques- 
tions which underlie the formation of mineral veins and ore 
bodies; and while thus far the discoveries in that direction 
have not proved the entire truth of what has been put forth 
as theories, still the progress of scientific research has been 
such as to inspire confidence in the future ability of men 
to demonstrate the truth. 

It is not the purpose of the writer of this hasty sketch 
to do aught more than to set forth simply the main truths 
concerning the geology of this county, as at present under- 
stood, leaving theory and hypothesis for discussion by 
those who feel themselves qualified for such a task. 

The eastern portion of the county belongs to the granite 
region — the rocks underlying and characterizing the 
locality being of that class. Westward we find a region 
which is as manifestly the slate region; the country rock be- 
ing argillaceous, or silicious, or talcose, presenting miner- 



426 HISTORY OF TDOLTJMNE COUNTY. 

alogically such differences that we may again divide the slate 
region into two divisions, viz: the clay slate belt, and the 
talcose slate belt; the latter lying parallel to, but west 
from the other. 

The prevailing character of certain of the upper sedi- 
mentary rocks stamps them as belonging to the Cretaceous 
epoch. Tertiary deposits occur, and will be referred to in 
their proper place. So, to simplify the geological view of 
the county, the surface may be regarded as being divided 
into three great belts, parallel to each other, and whose 
course is north and south. These are the granite, the 
clay slate, and the talcose slate belts. 

Limestone occurs abundantly, constituting a broad belt 
or deposit, hundreds of feet in thickness and several miles 
in width, penetrating from north to south, and nearly co- 
incident with the central slates. 

No richer field for scientific study exists in this State, 
and within the county the vicinity of Sonora possesses 
perhaps as many points of interest as any other locality. 
The town is situated in what was apparently the basin 
of an immense lake in far distant times. What was the 
size of this lake is impossible to approximate to. Viewed 
from the summit of Bald Mountain, its shores stand out 
in bold relief. Eight miles north by west they seem to 
consist of coarse sandstone, outlining the base of a conical 
volcanic peak. Northward still farther the eye catches 
the view of the same peculiar characters of table-capped 
summits at a distance of some fourteen miles. In other 
directions the ajjpearance of shore-lines is hardly less clearly 
defined. 

While viewing these evidences, one cannot but be struck 
with admiration and wonder at the various changes that 
this portion of the country has undergone, and one cannot 
have even the slightest conception of the extent of that 



GEOLOGY AND MINING. 427 

power by whose influence these changes have been wrought. 
Upon these hills one may sit, and in imagination picture to 
himself the smooth and unruffled surface of this lake, whose 
depth may have been four hundred or more feet, and whose 
breadth reached a score of miles, with a length of twice 
that, with animals far different from those which now in- 
habit its site, feeding upon its shores or basking in its 
waters. Where in this age the toilsome miner spent his 
years in exhuming from Mother Earth's bosom the treas- 
ures scattered abroad by Nature's forces and left in the 
deep canons or in the clefts in the rugged limestone bowl- 
ders, once there trod strange animals feeding upon strange 
plants, or warring with and devouring each other. The 
mastodon, the giant of mammals, and the highest developed 
and strongest being of its remote age, roamed at will 
throughout this region, finally Laying his bones to rest in 
the alluvium which was forming, and fx'orai whence they have 
been torn by the inquiring men of to-day, to be eagerly 
scanned by the scientist who adds another species or an- 
other genus to the sum of knowledge. 

The limestone deposits above referred to form one of the 
most curious formations ever remarked by science. Addi- 
tional interest pertains to them on account of the fact that 
the earliest and most extensive placers ever worked were 
upon limestone. . This belt runs through all the southern 
mining counties, and can be traced for one hundred miles, 
with variable width, the greatest extent of which is several 
miles — at Columbia. The overlying placer deposits were 
very extensive, but were in general shallow, not usually 
extending more than six feet beneath the surface; but 
in some instances the auriferous gravels were a hundred 
feet in depth, inclusive of the depth of the crevices into 
which the gold had penetrated. Throughout its whole ex- 
tent the limestone bedrock has been carved into fantastic 



428 HISTORY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 

forms by the agency of water carrying carbonic acid, which 
has dissolved the more soluble portions, leaving projecting 
masses, irregular in outline, standing like gravestones to 
mark a prehistoric burial place of giants. This action of 
the water is not confined to the surface; below, and out of 
vision, the same agencies have been and still are at work, 
carving the limestone into formless shapes^ wearing out 
small crevices and huge caverns, some accessible to man, 
but most of all secured from his gaze by many feet of stone . 

Several distinct strata of limestone exist, overlying each 
other, and one or more of these are said to contain fossil 
encrinites] but there is no distinct and indisj)utable evi- 
dence to show the place in geological history' of this de- 
posit. However, it is clear that it is of deep-sea, marine' 
origin. It shows distinct stratification, and alternate layers 
of ^gray, blue and white. The stratification is nearly ver- 
tical. 

At a point near Columbia is the already well known 
"Crystal Palace Cave," a vast cavern in the solid limestone, 
excavated, as above indicated, by percolating waters charged 
with carbonic acid. Its extent is measured by miles, while 
acres of passages and chambers exist, ornamented by nature 
with stalactitic formations of the most gorgeous descrip- 
tion. 

Many evidences of intense volcanic action exist in Tuol- 
umne County. Streams of lava have in ancient times 
flowed downward across the land, and Table Mountain yet 
remains a memento of those ei:>ocbs, while in the eastern 
part of the County fifty feet of breccia, a different lava de- 
posit, cover the hills. No greater wonder exists than Table 
Mountain. Thirty miles long, and of surprising regularity, 
even on the summit, a stream of molten lava forced itself 
downward towards the plains, and hardened where it ran, 



GEOLOGY AND MINING. 429 

attaining a width of from twelve to eighteen hundred feet, 
and being of an average thickness of one hundred and fifty 
feet. 

"The space occupied by this wall-like mountain was once 
the channel of a river, having precipitous banks," down 
which the melted basalt ran from its source in a neighbor- 
ing volcano. That an old river-bed lies beneath is proved 
by the fact that the underlying detrital matter is water- 
worn, and that deposits of gold-bearing gravel are contained 
therein, from which immense sums have been realized from 
their workings. Beneath the basalt comes a deposit of 
what by the miners is called "pipe clay," but which doubt- 
less is but another form of volcanic matter which was 
poured out previous to the main overflow. 

Subsequently to this outpouring, and after the molten 
stream had cooled, the great process of erosion, continuing, 
has scooped out all the canons and vtJleys as we now find 
them, and has lowered the bed of the Stanislaus two thou- 
sand feet. In this gigantic and long continued action of 
the great rivers which then flowed over this region, carving, 
destroying and denuding vast tracts, the configuration of 
the whole country was changed; and, as a well attested 
case in point, the eaith and rocks hemming in the great 
lava stream were worn away, leaving the hard basaltic mass 
nearly intact, and surviving the destruction and removal of 
the softer rocks. 

It is difiicult to conceive of any force capable of effecting 
such extensive degradation of strata as has occurred here, 
but that it has occurred there can be no doubt. Examining 
the canon of the Stanislaus, it becomes apparent that the 
lava stream had crossed it near Abbey's Ferry, at a great 
hight above the present watei- level; and as the volcanic 
current had followed some other channel previously exca- 
vated by water, it is evident that the amount of denudation 



430 HISTORY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 

was much greater than the present depth of the existing 
canon, say three or four thousand feet; figures that repre- 
sent the erosion which has taken place within the compara- 
tively late geological epoch succeeding the lava flow. 

Here arise some speculations as to the comparative ages 
of the different deposits found in the county. It is well 
known that the limestone underlies Table Mountain, thus 
proving its superior antiquity. Slate antedates limestone, 
as proved by the existence of the upturned edges of slate 
strata within 'the limestone belt, peculiar in that their ex- 
treme metamorphism produces a strong resemblance to 
trajD, for which this slate is oftentimes mistaken by the 
local savants. 

That these slates, largely silicious, are older than the 
neighboring granite, appears from the existence of granitic 
dykes, forced upward through the slate and lying in con- 
tact therewith — a thing that could not result from the sub- 
sequent deposition of the sedimentary slate. An attendant 
circumstance is the extreme metamorphism of the contigu- 
ous slate, as caused by the influence of the highly heated 
granite, which it will need hardly be said was in a melted 
condition when it arrived at its present position. 

We can now state the comparative age of the four prin- 
cipal formations, as follows: First in point of age comes 
slate, then granite, and limestone, and finally the volcanic 
deposits of Table Mountain. 

Next we come to consider the later deposits. 

After the formation of Table Mountain, and after the in- 
tense volcanic action had ceased, it is considered by geolo- 
gists that there occurred a period in which the rainfall was 
excessive, and in which all the streams flowing over this 
land were of corresponding magnitude. This supposition 
is put forward as the most likely means to account for the 
enormous denudation of land which has taken jjlace. 



GEOLOGY AND MINIKG. 431 

Herein lies the key to the deposition of gold-bearing gravels, 
both ancient and modern. The former gravel beds, foand 
frequently on the tops of high elevations, resulted from 
the deposit from running water of particles of earth worn 
from the vicinity of quartz veins, and carrying along with 
them the gold disseminated throughout their mass. Orig- 
inally so deposited, subsequent erosions by the modern 
streams, to which volcanic changes have given totally 
different channels and directions, have again moved the 
auriferous materials, winnowing out the gold and leaving 
a portion of it in the newer placers, which are the shallow 
deposits of the lower canons of the present day. Herein 
is seen the connected fact of the great erosion of this part 
of the country, removing nearly all of the ancient gravels, 
but still leaving sufficient of the massy deposits to prove 
the truth of the theory. 

This supposition regards quartz as the principal or sole 
matrix of gold — indisputable in the absence of an atom of 
evidence to the contrary. But it is not to be supposed 
that the present insignificant known veins had anything 
important to do with it. We can not regard the quantity 
of gold which man has extracted, or which yet remains in 
the available gravel leads, as more than a tithe of the actual 
quantity which was originally set free by the wearing down 
of A MILE of sedimentary slates and other rocks intersected 
by quartz veins, perhaps more extensive than on the present 
slightly prospected surface. Were the vanished rocks no 
richer than those that remain, who can estimate the wealth 
contained in that mile of Tuolumne's rock-ribbed earth 
which lies at present nearest the surface? Doubtless, 
were it prospected, its "pockets" removed, its milling ore 
crushed, its sulphurets reduced, and its gravel washed, the 
resulting mass of gold might suffice to enrich the world. 

Truly, this is a vast subject. We have here the consid- 



432 HISTOBT OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 

eration of the existence of innumerable veins of quartz ex- 
isting within the rocks to a countless depth, involving 
wealth beyond calculation, and geological power and age 
beyond human imaginings. What time in past eras has 
done, time in the succeeding epochs may do. Argonauts 
of the tremendous future may search the streams for the 
yellow dross a mile beneath us, as possibly others have 
done a mile above us in the hoary past. The gravel that 
underlies the valleys of the San Joaquin and the Sacra- 
mento came from the Sierra, and holds those minute par- 
ticles of gold that were sustained by the waters in their 
passage; and that gold is lost to man. The gold is lost; 
but not so the lesson of the power and beneficence of the 
Creator who planed down these giant mountains, that man 
might gain by that which his puny strength could not 
otherwise reap. 

The basaltic lava deposits have been referred to the Pli- 
ocene era. The ancient gravel beds are of previous exist- 
ence. In the detritus beneath Table Mountain the bones 
and teeth of animals, notably of the rhinoceros, of a species 
of horse, of the mammoth {elephas primigenius) , of a species 
of camel, together with silicified wood, have been found, 
and possibly also relics of primeval man. According to 
"Whitney, the remains of the mastodon, elephant, bison, 
tapir, the existing species of horse, and of prehistoric man's 
works, exist within the newer placer gravels; while buried 
within the deep, ancient placers, the mastodon, rhinoceros, 
an ally to the hippopotamus, an ally to the camel, and an 
extinct species of horse are found. 

Thus the animals of the deep gravel period partook of 
the Pliocene characters, and also, to a less degree, to those 
of the succeeding Quaternary. Hence, Whitney is of the 
opinion that the deep placers were formed in the later Pli- 
ocene time, and that the lava flo<v occurred at the termina- 



GEOLOGY AND MINING. 433 

tion of that epoch or at the beginning of the Quaternary; 
but Professor Le Conte, suggesting the probability of the 
Pliocene animal types lingering on into the succeeding 
epoch, deems it likely that the earlier Quaternary beheld 
the formation of the deep placers, while the newer placers 
were formed in the later portion of the same era; support- 
ing this theory with the statement that the deep placei 
gravels are similar to the Quaternary gravels all over the 
world, excepting their cementation in some cases into grits 
and conglomerates, through the agency of alkali and solu- 
ble silica, derived from overlying lava. 

In the latter case, the formation of Table Mountain 
would necessarily have been of more recent origin, afford- 
ing yet a grand illustration of the immensity of geologic 
time, inasmuch as the entire washing away of the thousands 
of feet of hard slate has been the work of the elements in 
time subsequent to the volcanic outbreak, which we may 
assume took place after a considerable lapse of Quaternary 
time. 

"Several cases have been reported of the finding of human 
remains in the sub-lava" detritus. These cases are not 
attested upon the authority of scientific men, but rest upon 
respectable evidence — insufficient, indeed, to jDrove an 
hypothesis, but highly deserving of consideration. Aside 
from the Calaveras skull mentioned by Whitney, and the 
Table Mountain skull reported by Winslow, there have 
been reports of mortars and ^Destles, of flint sj)ear-heads 
and arrow heads found. But while these rest on fair evi- 
dence, yet they seem to carry disproof within themselves. 
The idea that a race existed at a period tens of thousands 
of years in the past, who manufactured and used j)recisely 
the same utensils that the present Indians do, seems an 
absurdity. One might as well expect to find Koman swords 
or English cannon beneath the giant lava stream, for it is 



434 HISTORY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY, 

impossible in the light of science that any race of men could 
have continued to exist throughout such a 8j)ace of time as 
separates the volcanic outbreak from the present. It is 
more likely that a score of successive races have inhabited 
the region, each separated from the others by the widest 
ethnological differences, than that one should have such a 
perpetuity, neither advancing nor retrograding in their arts, 
habits and manufactures: and, that they did not advance 
would be evidenced by the continued use of the above men- 
tioned utensils. Decidedly, we must admit a very high 
antiquity to the lava deposits. To assign an age of a thou- 
sand centuries would not seem extravagant, considering 
the denudation that has since taken place. These figures 
are not put forward as their approximate age, however, but 
merely as a show for argument. Let it be assumed, then, 
that Table Mountain has that age, and it follows that the 
Stone Age of the inhabitants commenced even earlier, for 
there is no opj)ortunity of knowing how long the sub-lava 
deposits had been forming, within which these relics have 
accumulated. Considering that the people of that date, 
were there such, used precisely the same implements as 
those now in use among the Digger Indians, it is the in- 
evitable conclusion that they must have been Diggers, and 
naught else. But this, as before remarked, is absurd; for 
there is not only no record or suspicion of any human race 
continuing for such a space of time, but it does not seem 
that any species of animals ever existed through such an 
extent of ages. The genus i7o»io ma}' then have been in 
existence, but certainly not the species Sapiens. 

There is m man a remarkable tendency to exaggeration 
of periods of time, a reverence for the antique, as it were, 
which, though most evident among the unscientific, yet 
"crops out" in the geological mind to some extent, and 
correspondingly weakens the statements of vast ages cred- 



GEOLOGY AND MINING. 435 

ited to different strata and to different organic remains. 
The writer does not wish to impress it upon the people of 
Tuolumne that their Table Mountain is one hundred thou- 
sand years old; those figures being assumed at will, one 
half the time would just as well have carried out the pur- 
poses of his argument, or, indeed, for that matter, one 
tenth. The chief point to be regarded is, that to the ordi- 
nary mind a cycle of geological time — the period in which 
whole lands have been submerged, or hundreds of feet of 
sedimentary strata have been formed — is meaningless ; 
while a generation, or a century, carries with it a solemn 
seriousness. So it is with alleged discoveries of fossil re- 
mains: most men would have little hesitancy in accepting 
a dog's skeleton as coming from ground which a geologist 
would have no difficulty in identifying as of Silurian or 
Carboniferous origin, while the same man would hardly 
mention a locomotive engine or a repeating rifle as having 
been in use in the Revolutionary War. Yet the one is no 
more impossible than the other. Indeed, the former would 
be the easier to disj^rove; for of all scientific records, those 
which are most satisfactorily made out are those portions 
of geological science which the careful and advanced 
thinkers of to-day present to us for our study and reflection. 



Origin of Gold. 

Many theories regarding the oi-igin of mineral veins and 
the occurrence of metals therein have been advanced, and 
the important subject has been variously and ably treated. 
But as yet perhaps no theory has been advanced that seems 
by its inherent applicability to remove all doubt. The 
sublimation theory, with its modifications, seems inappli- 



436 HISTORY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 

cable to the case of quartz veins, which are known to have 
been of aqueous origin. Electricity, it has been suggested, 
was the agent by which the deposition of veins was con- 
trolled; but this theory only seems to increase the difficulty, 
by assigning to an agent of which nothing is known results 
which it produced in some unimaginable way, so that the 
theory embroils us in more difficulties than at first. Some 
eminent scientists have given their adhesion to the hypoth- 
esis that the superincumbent sea water (known to contain 
traces of gold) parted with its auriferous store to the slates 
then in process of formation, and that afterwards the gold 
became collected in the later-formed quartz veins, through 
the agency of solution and chemical affinity. 

Professor Le Conte, in his new "Elements of Geology," 
gives the outline of the most probable theory yet advanced, 
from which these extracts are made : 

The contents of mineral veins seem to have been de- 
posited from hot alkaline solutions coming up through the 
fissures previously produced by movements of the earth's 
crust. Eibhon structure and interlocked crystals show 
this, and cavities are seen to be filled which could have 
been filled in no other way than by deposition from solu- 
tions. Fluid cavities exist in the quartz, which is the most 
common vein stufi". Quartz crystals only form thus. 

These solutions were hot. Deep fissures necessaril}' fill 
up with water, and this water from its contact with rocks at 
a great depth absorbs heat from them. The solvent power 
of hot water under pressure is extremely great. Scarcely any 
substance resists it. " The invariable association of metal- 
liferous veins with metamorphism demonstrates the agency 
of heat." 

The solutions were alkaline, containing alkaline carbon- 
ates and sulphides — the only natural solvents of quartz. 
Such solutions still exist in California and Nevada, and still 
are depositing quartz. 



GEOLOGY AND MINING. 437 

These facts show the almost certainty of alkaline liquids 
having deposited quartz in veins. As to the contained gold, 
the theory is sufficiently elastic to deal with that also. 
Professor LeConte informs us that metallic sulphides, i. e., 
iron pyrites ("sulphurets"), copper sulphurets. zinc blende, 
galena, silver glance, etc., are by far the commonest forms 
of ore, and other forms we know can be traced to sulphides, 
having become decomposed from their original form. But 
metallic sulphides are soluble in alkaline sulphides, such 
as sulphide of sodium, etc., and these waters containing 
them would deposit them, on cooling, in the fissures. 

It is a fact that at this very time there are veins of quartz 
containing the sulphides of lead, iron, mercury, copper 
and zinc, forming, in the State of Nevada, where the 
operation is visible to the eye of man; and it is going on 
just in the way indicated above. This, it may be said, is 
evidence enough to suj^port the theory cited. 

***'*'* " Gold is known to be slightly soluble in 
the salts of iron. These salts, especially the sulphate and 
per-sulphate of iron, are the probable solvents of gold. 
The silicate of gold is slightly soluble also. * * * * 
In the auriferous veins of California * * * * the gold 
exists as minute crystals and threads, enclosed in the sul- 
phide of iron, and therefore must have been deposited from 
the same solution as the iron. It seems most probable 
that the gold was dissolved in a solution of the sulj)hate or 
per-sulphate of iron, and that the sulphate was deoxidized 
and became insoluble sulphide, and was then precipitated 
and that the gold thus set free from solution was entangled 
in the sulphide at the moment of the precipitation of the 
latter. 

* * * " Gold is sometimes found in pure quartz, with- 
out the sulphide of iron. In these cases it may have been 
in solution in alkaline water as silicate of gold, as suggested 
by Bischof . 



438 HISTOBY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 

* * * " Although gold exists in the iron stilj)hide of 
the unchanged portion of the vein, only in minute, even 
microscopic, crystals and threads, yet in the changed upper 
portion of the vein it exists in visible particles, and often 
in large ntigcjeia weighing several ounces, and rarely, of sev- 
eral pounds weight. This fact is additional evidence that 
sulphate of iron is the natural solvent of gold. There can 
he no doubt that these larger grains and nuggets result 
from a coalescence of all the minute particles contained in 
a mass of sulj)hide, into one or more larger masses. By 
meteoric agencies, the sulphide is oxidized into sulphate, 
and the gold re-dissolved. From this solution it crystalizes 
into one mass, as the solution concentrates by losing its 
sulphuric acid and changing into peroxide. In the case of 
large nuggets, the gold is probably in some way deposited 
constantly at the same place, from a similar solution bring- 
ing gold for a long time." 

These brief extracts will serve to give an idea of the 
theory which the later developments of geology have made 
to prevail. It will be seen that these suppositions dispose 
of the difficulties existing with resj^ect to the formation of 
mineral veins in granite and other rocks besides clay slate. 
We need not seek for explanation as to the power of con- 
ducting electricity which any given formation possesses. 
Neither do all veins necessarily have to lie in a due north 
and south direction to make this theory admissible. Nor is 
intense heat necessary, as in the sublimation or igneous 
theories. Finally, we easily account for the existing 
growth of veins, and for veins formed at very different 
periods of the world's history. 

Having said so much upon the formation of veins, we 
will now proceed to the discussion of the mines of this 
county, first taking up gold mining in quartz. 



GEOLOGY AND MINING. 439 

Quartz Mining. 

The first mention of quartz veins containing gold was 
made in the Sonora Herald of January 25, 1851. Therein 
it is stated that a very rich quartz vein had been opened at 
Jamestown by Turner & Co., several weeks previous. Also, 
that several other veins containing rich gold specimens had 
just been discovered nearer to Sonora; but that the dis- 
coverers would refrain from working them until Congress 
had made such laws as would secure them in their rights. 

Undoubtedly these veins were what are now known as 
*' pocket" veins, in contradistinction to "charge" or " mill- 
ing" veins; the difference being mainly in the dissemina- 
tion of the metal. 

By the following September a considerable number of 
quartz "pocket" veins had been opened, in one of which 
very rich finds had been made by the "Tennessee Com- 
pany." Just previously the famous "Ford Lead" had 
been found, and had yielded prodigiously. Mr. Linoberg, 
of Sonora, became owner of the chief portion upon the 
death of the discoverer, and the claim was afterwards 
known as the " Louisiana Mine." In the same issneof the 
Herald we learn that the quartz excitement was diminish- 
ing, the results not having equalled the anticipations. 

Quartz mining, as an industry, was soon after thoroughly 
established in Tuolumne, and the interest that attached to 
It has continued unabated to the present day. In spite of 
temporary discouragements, such as it met almost at the 
beginning, it has remained one of the leading interests, 
assisting more than any other to the well being of the 
county; and though the milling veins have not proved so 
rich as in other localities, that does not prove in any degree 
that the mining interests of the county are of small import- 
ance or unworthy of the attention which has been given them. 
Nor does it follow that because the quality and quantity of 



440 HISTOEY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 

the rock so far extracted has not been such as to make the 
fortunes of more than a few, that the future will be of simi- 
lar results. Speaking from experience, it is safe to say 
that there exists, untouched at present, deposits of gold 
ore which, when the time comes to work them, will produce 
results worthy of comparison with the yields of other fa- 
vored localities. 

We find that as early as 1851, Messrs. Bell, Linoberg & 
Co. had established an office in Sonora known as the 
" Quartz Mines and Intelligence Office;" devoted to the 
spreading of information relating to quartz, and to the pur- 
chase and sale of mining property and mining machinery. 
Here quartz was tested for customers. 

The consideration of pocket mines having been relegated 
to another chapter, this article will contain only remarks 
upon the milling veins of the county, and these it is per- 
haps best to treat in detail, commencing with a description 
of the great Mother Lode, upon which most of the mines 
are situated. 

The Mother Lode is, in many respects, the most re- 
markable metalliferous vein in the known world. Its pro- 
duction of the precious metal has not been so great as other 
quartz bodies have afforded, but its peculiar features, its 
influence upon the topography of the country, and its well 
sustained average value, together make it as above denomi- 
nated. Then its extent is most remarkable, as it is dis- 
tinctly traced for more than sixty miles — a fact that is most 
extraordinary, considering that the great Comstock and 
sundry rich South American lodes, each of which have pro- 
duced more wealth, cannot be traced for a tenth of that 
distance. The general course of the vein is forty degrees 
west of north. If a straight line were drawn connecting its 
two ends, the lode would be usually within a half mile 
of it; but in a few places two or three miles distant. 



GEOLOGY AND MINING. 441 

The dip is eastern, and at an angle of forty-five or fifty 
degree* from the horizon. 

The lode is made up of an association of parallel veins, 
the main one of which varies greatly in width, in places 
reaching thirty feet. Branches or companion veins some- 
times increase this to nearly one hundred feet. In some 
places the side veins are portions of the main vein, sepa- 
rated by "horses" at the surface, and uniting further 
down. In other cases they are totally different deposits, 
which do not unite even at the lowest workings. The most 
remarkable side veins are composed of talcose slate which 
carries gold and can be traced for miles, preserving a width 
of from two to twenty feet. 

The chief peculiarities of the lode are its great length 
and thickness, its uniform character as to quaatz, and the 
character and richness of the large talcose companion veins. 

The mines upon the great lode have been extensively 
worked, producing an enormous sum in the aggregate, and 
still promise, perhaps more than any others, additional re- 
wards to the energy which may be dirocted to their develop- 
ment. Although the vein has been extensively prospected, 
being pierced by their shafts at innumerable points, still it 
cannot be said that the wealth of the lode has been en- 
tirely brought to light ; on the contrary, miles of its out- 
croppings and its lower depths still remain to be examined. 
Much of the rock from this vein will paj^ sum which is 
not quite sufficient for its present profitable working ; but 
in the future, when the work may be done at a cheaper 
rate, no doubt extensive mills will be constructed, which, 
devoted to working this ore, will produce fortunes. 

Among the mines upon the Mother Lode, the Quartz 
Mountain Gold Mining Company's property, at Quartz 
Mountain, formerly known as the Heslep mine, has been 
considered a good and lasting mine. It has been pros- 



442 HISTOEY OF TUOLUMKE COUNTY. 

pected to a depth of 500 feet, furnishing all the way a 
silicious slate deposit, characteristic of the Mothei; Lode, 
containing a tolerable content of gold. The contained 
sulphurets are not saved, though they have been consid- 
ered promising sources of wealth. On the claim is a 25- 
stamp mill, with concentrating machinery, etc., the whole 
driven by a 45-foot overshot wheel. 

The App claim is located on a lode parallel to the main 
vein, and about 300 feet distant therefrom. It has a 25- 
stamp mill run by Avater power. The shaft is 800 feet in 
depth. 

The Alabama claim, located on the great lode, has within 
the past few years taken high rank. It has 12 feet or more 
of low grade ore, easily accessible and capable of being 
cheaply worked, as there is on the claim a magnificent 40- 
stamp mill, driven by water power, capable of crushing 50 
tons daily. Under Mr. Harris' capable management, the 
mine has become the leading exponent of the system of 
working low grade ores successfully. Figures are wanting, 
but there is no doubt that the Alabama is capable of ex- 
tracting and crushing quartz as cheaply as it can be done 
at any mine in the world. The Sierra Buttes mine, in 
Plumas County, is able to take out and crush rock at a cost 
of not over two dollars per ton, the mill containing 60 
stamps, and amalgamating in battery. No doubt the Ala- 
bama can compete even with such work as this. It is well 
for Tuolumne county that there exists an institution in 
which those ores which, though of small value per ton, yet 
are of the utmost importance to the county, may be j^rofit- 
ably treated. It is a safe assertion to say that there are 
unlimited quantities of such ores in the county which may 
and doubtless will prove the mainstay of a large and in- 
creasing population. 



GEOLOGY AND MINING. 443 

The Rawhide Ranch Mine is also located on the Mother 
Lode. Discovered by Hodge and Williamson, it was, in 
1876, after several years' prospecting, sold to a New York 
company for $75,000. The new owners set to work to de- 
velop it properly, quite a town (Rawhide) springing up in 
the vicinitj". A first-class twenty-stamp mill was put up, 
and other expensive improvements were introduced, at 
great cost. In two years they had sunk 320 feet on the vein, 
finding it 25 feet thick at that depth, and lying between 
slate and serpentine. Suspending operations at that time, 
nothing of importance has since been done, only one man 
being employed. 

From this mine have come specimens of the so-called 
" telluride " ore, which is a compound of tellurium with 
gold, lead and possibly other metals, and which is very 
valuable, being worth man}- thousand dollars per ton. It 
is also found in other localities in this and adjoining coun 
ties. 

Two miles west of the RaAvhide is situated the Chaparral, 
or Labetoure Mine. C. Labetoure & Co. commenced de- 
veloping the property in 1862, building a five-stamp mill 
which was profitably operated for years, working their 
claim imprudently enough, Avithal. Pockets amounting to 
nearly a quarter of a million dollars were taken out of this 
company's ground, either from the main or neighboring 
veins. The course of this vein is at right angles to the 
Rawhide vein, and it shows well at a depth of 120 feet. 
The i^resent 20-stamp mill has never been profitably run. 

(The subject of " Tellurium " ores has been investigated 
by chemists, in consequence of the discovery in Colorado 
of comparatively large quantities of these compounds. The 
tellurides with which miners are mostly concerned are two 
in number, one containing tellurium with gold principally, 
the other being composed of the elements tellurium, gold, 



444 HISTORY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 

lead and silver, associated with one or two other metals, 
which exist in it in less proportion. In order that these 
two tellurides mav be easily identified by the miner and 
prospector, it may be remarked that these two compounds 
melt at a low temperature, and on cooling crystallize into 
hemihedral forms, which circumstance, together with the 
additional fact of their assuming a grayish color, is proof 
sufficient to establish their identity. By the use of the 
proper fluxes, gold may be made to appear to the naked 
eye, its reduction taking place without much difficulty. 
Placed in a crucible, with carbonate of soda, the reduction 
is complete, affording the full proportion of the precious 
metal on the application of heat. The process of reduction 
has been said to result in the loss of the contained gold; 
but this is not so, unless the heat be urged to an undue 
degree. However, there is no doubt but that the process 
of reduction of very rich telluride ores is to be best per- 
formed in those works which are specially fitted up for the 
purpose.) 

The Little Gem Mine, situated near Jamestown, and 
owned and operated by W. N. Harris, Esq., furnishes a 
good example of what prudence and business capacity may 
accomplish. The ten -stamp mill on this mine was erected 
in 1879, the expense being met by the proceeds of rich ore 
which was jDOunded out in a hand- mortar during that time. 

The vein is parallel to and 200 feet distant from the 
Mother Lode. The middle of the vein is the richest, afford- 
ing many fine specimens, while the sides are of medium 
milling quality. The history of the Little Gem is a record 
of success. 

Commencing at the main fork of the Stanislaus, there 
are, between that stream and the south fork, the Tennessee 
Mine, discovered by Jones and Woodman in 1860, situated 
on Rose Creek Ridge; the Star Mine, a mile further up the 



GEOLOGY AKD MINING. 445 

creek, a property of some value, but whose ore was too 
base to admit of free milling; the Tiger Mine, adjoining 
the Star, and owned by the same proj)rietors, with a three- 
foot vein, first-rate prospect, and provided with a five-stamp 
mill; the U. S. Grant Mine, on which a quarter of a million 
dollars was said to have been spent in exploring, but which 
was then abandoned; the Eiverside, located by Keltz and 
Keil in 1857, and which is being worked at various inter- 
vals, chiefly in exploration, but a very valuable property, 
something neglected. A twenty-stamp mill, well appointed, 
stands by, having done good service in working the rich 
rock of this vein. 

The above mines, together with several others of less 
prominence, are on the north side of the south fork. Cross- 
ing the fork, we come to the Keltz Mine, 1,500 feet above 
the river. This discovery was raade by Keltz in 1862, 
and an offer of thirty thousand dollars was reported; but 
too conscious of having a good thing, he preferred to hold 
on. Under the conduct of Keltz, Brodigan and Sharwood, 
various shafts have been sunk, developments made and im- 
provements introduced. The mine now has a twenty- 
stamp mill, an aerial railway, and a shaft 220 feet in depth 
showing a three-foot seam. But little is now being done 
at this mine, two or three men only being employed in 
extracting ore, which they do on tribute. 

A short distance south of the Keltz is the Hazel Dell, a 
contact vein between slate and granite — a feature that has 
been supposed to be of the greatest value, but whose 
promise is not fully carried out in this region. Located in 
1863, the ore has run from eight to one hundred and fifty 
dollars per ton. The present owners are Boston men, who 
have abandoned the works temporai-ily or permanently. 



446^ HISTOEY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 

The Shanghai claim, east of Columbia, has supported the 
working of a ten-stamp mill for years, but of late the ma- 
chinery has been removed. 

About Tuttletown there are a large number of mines 
that have some time held permanent places in mining 
affairs. The pocket lodes htive proved very rich indeed, 
the deposits found in particular instances reaching thirty 
thousand and even Mtj thousand dollars. The leads are 
in slate, neigbboring the limestone range. 

The Patterson Mine has been worked with favorable re- 
sults at odd times for about twenty-five years. It is now 
owned by D. T. Hughes & Co., who recently purchased 
the property for the sum of $9,500 and other valuable con- 
siderations. There is an old twenty-stamp mill on the 
ground, with other appurtenances. The veinstone consists 
mostly of a magnesian limestone (dolomitic, perhaps), 
carrying a considerable percentage of sulphurets, whose 
richness is very variable. 

It has been an axiom with metallurgists that cubic sul- 
phurets were nearly worthless; but this dictum must give 
way before the evidence of the discoveries at Tuttletown. 
There, pyrites, fair cubes of large size, exist, which are 
thoroughly permeated or interlaced with filaments and 
sheets of gold; and these rich sulphurets exist to some ex- 
tent in the Patterson and Eames Mines. But the fact 
should not be lost sight of that they have not been found 
to exist largely. Mr. Eames was led into his extravagant 
outlay of his own and other men's money and labor through 
a trifling "find" of rich pyritous matter; and no doubt 
other conceited "scientists" will follow his example, to 
the injury of the mines and people of Tuolumne. 

A half mile or so from Tuttletown is the Atlas, formerly 
the Waters mine, now owned but not operated by a com- 
pany of San Francisco speculators, calling themselves the 



SEOLOGT AND MININft. 447 

Atlas Gold Mining Company. They have an immense de- 
posit of lime and magnesia carbonate, carrying an infini- 
tesimal amount of free gold contained in little stringers 
and threads of quartz, and having a large percentage of 
exceedingly poor sulphurets, worth probably twenty dollars 
per ton, or less. Owing to the extent of the deposit, the 
mine would be valuable if the vein matter had an average 
richness of two^ dollars and a half ; but this it does not 
seem to have. And, indeed, the concentrations will not 
pay for working in even the cheapest way. The Atlas is an 
example of a sulphuret mine — one of the many wbose 
working has been atfcemj)ted in Tuolumne, but never with 
success. The only way to realize profit from sulphurets is 
to gather them up from the concentrators and keep them 
for sale and shipment to San Francisco. The closest, best 
manager who ever operated in sulphurets in Tuolumne, 
failed to make it pay, even with the best appliances, a good 
mine and eight years' experience . 

The Atlas people had neither mine, experience nor skill, 
consequently they failed. They have, however, a beautiful 
mill, ornamental, if not useful, containing 10 stamps driven 
by steam, and having concentrators and other apparatus, 
making it the best mill in the county. 

Thus far the attempts made to utilize the sulphuret de- 
posits at Tuitletown have been signal failures. 

The Golden Gate mine, a mile south of Sonora, on the 
bank of Woods' Creek, is the only milling vein that has 
been largely worked in that vicinity. Formerly the rock 
carried free gold in considerable quantity, but later the 
only supply of gold was contained within the iron pyrites 
("sulphurets'"), which exist to the extent of two to three 
per cent, of the vein matter. Ledge four feet in thickness, 
ten-stamp mill rather well fitted up, with tramway, concen- 
trators of divers torts, and much experimental apparatus. 



^8 



HISTOKY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 



Bavmg only sulphurets to extract gold from, and they re- 
quii'ing roasting, Mr. H. G. Wetmore, the present Super- 
intendent and part proprietor, erected an excellent rever- 
"beratory four-hearth furnace, with a soapstone bottom, and 
also put up chlorination works. But with all these acces- 
sories he found it impossible to make it pay; $70,000 were 
extracted, to get which $80,000 had to be exj)ended. Last 
year the mine shut down, to begin again with greater ad- 
vantages. 

Farther down the creek, near Bell's mills, is a very 
curious deposit of steatite, white, semi-transiucent, soften- 
ing to the aspect of clay, when exposed to the slackening 
influences of air and moisture. It is several hundred feet 
wide and a good part of a mile long, and of large depth, 
having been sunk on to a depth of 80 or 90 feet. This 
queer deposit contains unlimited amounts of fine looking 
pyrites, cubic, and of light color and light specific gravity 
(absence of copper), the whole furnishing a subject of 
speculation to miners and experts for the last thirty years. 
At times it has been thought and stated that therein existed 
vast and inconceivable wealth. A drawback exists in the 
fact that these sulphurets only assay about two dollars per 
ton. Aside from this fact, it is truly a bonanza. 

The Hyde mine is an apparently valuable claim, lying 
upon the land of Moses Hyde, Esq., about six miles dis- 
tant from Sonora. It is as yet but little improved, the 
explorations consisting of a tunnel some three hundred feet 
in length, striking the ledge at a depth of a hundred feet 
from the surface, and from which drifts have been run upon 
the vein about one hundred feet. Several holes have been 
sank upon the top of the vein, one in particular penetrating 
to the drifts mentioned. The vein is of an average thick- 
ness of six feet, and contains rock which assays in places 
$50 a ton, or more. 



GEOLOGY AND MINING. 449 

A one-stamp Kendall mill has been put ap, and was run 
for awhile with fair results, but now both mine and mill 
are idle, though the rock put through has yielded, it is 
said, $35 per ton, without regarding the sulphurets. 

Mr. Hyde informs the writer that the average rock in 
certain of the chutes will assay as high as $100 per ton. 

The best known of the mines at Soulsbyville are the 
Soulsby, the Piatt, the Hobbs & Hall, the Pennsylvania, 
the Live Oak, the Draper, the Gilson, the Coles & Soulsby, 
the Wheal Perrin, and the Churchill mines. Of these but 
two— the Soulsby and Coles & Soulsby claims — are now 
being worked. Incomparably the greatest of them all, and 
a mine which would be of importance in any mining region 
in the world, is the great Soulsby Mine. 

Ben Soulsby, Jr., has the honor of having discovered this 
famous lead. It happened while the young man was en- 
gaged in sheep-herding and prospecting in that vicinity. 
Locating the lead, it was soon after that Mr. Soulsby dis- 
posed of an interest to C. L. Street, Esq., now of Sonora; 
and the firm of Street & Soulsby worked the mine with 
good success for a while. Such was the richness of the 
vein at the surface that in one week sixty-five pounds of 
gold was extracted. Later in its history it was purchased 
by B. Davidson, Esq., who sunk the north shaft. Still 
later, the property was transferred to the English Company 
which still retains it. 

The operations of the present owners have been conducted 
with the best judgment and a high degree of prudence. 
Under the former management of Mr. Richard Johns, a 
very large sum of money was expended for permanent im- 
provements, everything being in shape for the easy and 
profitable extraction of ore. The several gentlemen con- 
nected with the management of the mine — R. Johns, W. 
Sharwood, and John Leechman — have evinced remarkable 



450 HISTORY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY, 

judgment and foresight in their work. Throughout its 
career the company has been extremely fortunate in its 
employes, all of whom have been eminent in their various 
departments. 

The ore from this vein is usually a purple-hued or white 
quartz, containing free gold to the extent of $100 per ton 
in some of the richer chutes, together with auriferous 
pyrites, also notably rich. The vein is nowhere of great 
thickness, its usual size being about a foot, and occasionally 
three times that. The country rock is granite; but singu- 
larly enough the vein is found inclosed in slate of a very 
compact texture below the depth of sixty feet. 

The underground works are very extensive, including as 
they do two shafts, the deeper of which is over 600 feet, 
and a system of levels for each succeeding hundred feet. 

Kepeatedly it has been supposed that the mine was ex- 
hausted; but further judicious explorations discovered valu- 
able deposits, and a "boom" again and again resulted. 
At present there is*a report of rich discoveries having been 
made, and this, it is to be hoped, is true, for the good of 
Soulsbyville, whose almost sole dependence is this mine. 

The mine is equipped with the best and most complete 
hoisting works, pumping apparatus, etc., in use in this 
county. The two shafts, situated at a distance of several 
hundred feet apart, are each provided with hoisting works, 
and the pumps of the great size needed. Either steam or 
water power can be used, at pleasure, for rvinning the 
various machinery, there being hurdy-gurdy wheels driven 
by water under a head of 300 feet or so, and in case of 
drought or accident, three powerful steam-engines stand 
ready to be attached to the stamps, the pumps, the hoisting 
reel, and the air comj)ressor. Everything, therefore, is 
conducted and arranged in the most efficient manner. A 
great part of the work below ground is done by contract, 



GEOLOGY AND MINING. 451 

that system proving the most iDrofitable, both to the owners 
and the miners. 

As in the case of nearly all of the mining companies of 
this speculative age, it is impossible to secure the true 
statements of the yield of this mine. Such being the case, 
the figures given in most cases being unreliable, it has been 
deemed best to omit any estimate or guess at the production 
of nearly every claim. In this connection it is remarked 
that the total yield of the Soulsby Mine is variously stated 
at from $600,000 to $3,000,000. 

The Pennsylvania, the Hobbs & Hall, and the Piatt 
mines, all lie to the southward of the Soulsby, and some of 
them upon the same vein. Although these mines are now 
idle, and have been so for years, it is represented that they 
are not exhausted by any means, but that work has ceased 
from various causes, particularly from the presence of 
water in quantities too great to be controlled without the 
erection of pumping apparatus of great cost. It is to be 
hoped, and expected too, that in time capital may be in- 
duced to assist in the work of extracting the decidedly rich 
rock which is thought to still exist in them, and in their 
neighbor, the Gilson or Raymond Mine. 

Both the Wheal Perrin and the Gilson claims deserve 
future attention, inasmuch as promising deposits of valu- 
able sulphuretted ores have been discovered in both of 
them. In the latter a tunnel 700 feet long was run, years 
ago, with a shaft 125 feet deep in connection with it, ex- 
posing an ore chute eighteen inches thick, a continuation 
of the same vein on which the Soulsby, Johnson & Brad- 
bury, Pennsylvania and Piatt minea-are situated. A ten- 
stamp mill was formerly in operation upon this mine, and 
it, in times past, has turned out considerable money. The 
same is true of the neighboring claims between it and the 
Soulsbv. 



452 GEOLOGY AND MINING. 

Southeast some half mile is the Live Oak mine, em- 
bracing 1,500 feet of a ledge of pretty good rock, which 
at a depth of 80 feet, is a yard wide, paying about $10 per 
ton in free gold, and in addition, containing a considerable 
percentage of sulphurets, which assay $440 per ton. 

A mile or so above Soalsbyville is the claim of Coles & 
Soulsby. Discovered many years ago, and located and re- 
located many times, it eventually fell into the hands of the 
present proprietors, Messrs. J. L. Coles and Ben Soulsby. 
These gentlemen have within a year or two sunk two shafts, 
connected them b}' drifts, and explored the mine suffi- 
ciently to demonstrate the existence of very valuable ore. 
The vein exists in pretty hard granite, and contains ' 'horses" 
to a great extent, near the surface, it being in fact entirely 
split up and mingled with the country rock. The quartz is 
hard, of a purple cast, contains a very high proportion of 
sulphurets of the richest description, besides yielding free 
gold to an uncommon extent. Certain lots have been 
worked, which yielded $60 per ton by arastra process. 
These figures would have been immensely increased had 
the sulphurets been saved. 

There is no mill on the mine. The pumping and hoist- 
ing works, driven by water power, miracles of ingenuity in 
their way, were built upon the ground by Mr. Soulsby. 

Of the above mentioned claims, work is being done on 
but one, the Soulsby, where perhaps twenty men are em- 
ployed, and semi-occasionally a little is done upon the 
Coles & Soulsby. To an unprejudiced observer it would 
seem as if a greater degree of activity should take place in 
that region, there being several claims of known value 
which are not being worked, besides a number the indica- 
tions of which promise great wealth. 

Around Summersville little has been doing in quartz for 
many years, though at one time the village was the center 



GEOLOGY AND MINING. ' 453 

of a considerable business in that line. In former days 
the Eureka mine was worked with success, its main shaft 
attaining a depth of 700 feet, but its mill has now fallen, 
the clang of the stamps has ceased, and with its decay the 
village too has suffered, until now the place is the acme of 
quietness. 

Cherokee, formerly celebrated for its rich placers, which 
supported a large population in the palmy days, and later 
on assumed credit for its neighboring quartz veins, is now 
nearly deserted. A few Italians and Chinese only inhabit 
the place and no work is being done upon the veins. 

The Easton claim is situated at Arastraville, where the 
country rock is granite. There is a shaft 100 feet deej), 
with 80 feet of stopes, exposing three distinct veins of first- 
rate rock, rich in gold-bearing sulphiirets and free gold. 
Much of the mineral is said to assay |85 to $100 per ton. 
No machinery is in use except a horse-whim. This is the 
most promising mine in the vicinity, and may be the best 
new claim in the county. No efforts are being made to de- 
velop it, the desire being to sell out ; $30,000 is said to 
have been offered, but $50,000 was demanded. 

The Confidence mine, three miles north of Sonlsbyville, 
was discovered in 1853. Little work was donf toward de- 
veloping it until 1867, when it came into the jjossession of 
Holiada}^, the stage man, who instituted a thriving order 
of things. The present 40-stamp mill, driven by an en- 
gine of sufficient size, was built, with hoisting works com- 
plete, and an air comj)ressor for the Burleigh drills. A 
year was spent in these improvements, when the mine com- 
menced yielding largel}', paying the owner half a million 
dollars net, from a gross yield of §800,000 or so. Thus the 
Confidence came to occupy the front rank in the list of 
Tuolumne's quartz mines, being equalled only by the 
Soulsby in extent and income. 



454 HISTORY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 

In 1878 Holladay sold out to Messrs. Davis, Baker and 
Hamilton, who, employing William Simons as Superinten- 
dent, continued work with good results. At present the 
mine is idle, but it is worked spasmodicall}', with probably 
indifferent success. 

The lode has a course N.W. and S.E., is variable in 
width, averaging may be three feet betwen the walls, but 
occasionally rising to fifteen feet. The ore is free milling, 
containing but little sulphurets, and is worked by the usual 
battery-and-sluice amalgamation process, with subsequent 
concentration of the sulphurets. Arastras have been in 
use to treat the tailings, but with what success has not 
been stated. 

The greatest depth attained is 800 feet. From the work- 
ing incline run six levels, from 400 to 1,800 feet each in 
length, furnishing the most extensive system of under- 
ground workings in the county. The gross out-^jut has 
been something over a million dollars, it is said. 

Up on the North Fork of the Tuolumne River, and in 
Spring Gulch, are situated a number of important mines. 
The chief of these are the New Albany, Grizzly, Bonito, 
Consuelo, Starr King, Spring Gulch, Buchanan, Hunter, 
and Lewis mines. Most of these have been and still are 
regarded as valuable. Some have been develoiDed, the 
New Albany shaft reaching a depth of 800 feet. It has a 
good ten-stamp mill, and other corresponding improve- 
ments, but has never paid. The owners for eight years 
came up in the handsomest manner to the payment of 
assessments, but finally gave it up. 

The Grizzly also has a mill (20-stamps, water power), 
has got down 400 feet, and is said to have a good vein; but 
is now idle. So, too, are the Bonito and Consuelo; each 
of which have had a 20-stamp mill, and have expended 
some money in developing. 



GEOLOGy AND MINING. 455 

The Starr King is now being worked by its owner, Mr. 
Leechman, of the Soulsby Mine. It has a five-stamp mill, 
and is regarded as a fine property. The Spring Gulch 
Mine, three miles from the New Albany, has been explored 
about 500 feet deep, the vein being ten feet wide in some 
places. It has a ten-stamp mill over a mile from the mine, 
run by water power. 

The Hunter Mine, for a long time owned by W. G. 
Long, Esq., recently was sold to an Eastern company, who 
commenced work thereon, but shortly after ceased. What 
their ultimate action will be is not known. 

The Lewis Brothers- have a mine in the "Big Basin," 
which they have held on to for a long time, working it in a 
homeopathic sort of way occasionally. Their rock is good. 
The writer has seen average or under average lots of it that 
assayed $60 per ton; part of this fine gold, part in the 
galena and arsenical pyrites along with it. Although these 
gentlemen cannot be said to have exerted themselves much 
in improving their property, yet there comes the unavoida- 
ble reflection that their course of action has been as useful 
to the people of the county, and far more honorable in 
every way than the course which has been followed by 
Eastern and San Francisco "capitalists" (imaginary) who 
have so largely "invested" in Tuolumne's mines, but whose 
line of action has generally been to fleece all who are un- 
wary enough to trust to their honesty. Hence we may con- 
clude that it is better to trust to the sure enterprise of 
residents, who are honorable , if not wealtbj', than to base 
fictitious hopes upon the promises of speculators whose 
record, as a usual thing, is that of scheming swindlers. 

Down at Groveland there are one or two locations that 
have been of note in the past, as well as some newer ones 
that have been known of late. 

The Mount Jefferson is a sulphuret lead, 20 feet wide 



456 ' HISTORY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 

between the walls (in places), which has been explored to 
a depth of 250 feet. It has a steam mill (ten-stamps) with 
a small chlorination works. It has been worked at various 
times for several years. Now , a new trial is to be made 
with a good prospect of success. 

The Mormon Mine has been worked for the last twenty 
years, and, like the others, is in the slate belt. 

Mr. Ben. Hunter has recently discovered a lead that 
promises to prove of value. From it he has extracted forty 
tons of rock which paid him twenty-two dollars per ton. 
In addition there are sulphurets to a large extent in it. 
Mr. H. is constructing hoisting works, etc., to properly 
explore his property. 

The Olsen Lode, lying nearly down to the San Joaquin 
Valley, possesses perhaps more points of interest than any 
other claim in this county It is not, by any means, a type 
of a class, as are the Soulsby, the Spring Gulch, and other 
mines, for it stands alone in its peculiarities. 

The lode proper is over one hundred feet wide, composed 
of quartz, talc, mica slate, and other matters. It contains 
both gold and silver. At a considerable depth a deposit of 
silver glance has been found. Numerous specimens of 
metallic sijver in the form of wire, or leaf, are to be seen. 
Its existence has been a subject of wondor and of study. 
The processes in use at the mill, which is four miles from 
the mine, are, preliminary crushing, then working in pans, 
following closely the Comstock system. The mine had for 
a time the advantage of the scientific attainments and highly 
practical supervision of S. O. Brown, Esq., who acted as 
Superintendent, while Mr. J. Neale was Mine Foreman. 
Latterly the works have come under different management 
and not much is doing. 

The above short resume of the leading mines of Tuol- 
umne will serve to give an approximate idea of their 



GEOLOGJ AND MINING. 457 

present standing. It may be said that the outlook at 
present is not flattering. The fact is that, though present 
production is small, nearly extinguished, in fact, still there 
are strong indications of a prospective revival in mining 
affairs. The speculative age having partly gone by, and 
mining settled down to the situation demanded by prac- 
tical experience, the future may, and doubtless will, show 
increased production. The cheapened cost of labor and 
supplies will have something to do with the new order of 
things; new inventions and processes of working will have 
more. Many leads and veins might be named in this con- 
nection upon which great expectations for the coming time 
may be based; but the-subject may be dismissed with the 
remark, that Tuolumne's future interests in quartz mining 
are sure to be of as great importance as are those of any 
similar locality in the State. 



Pocket, or Deposit Mining. 

In the early days of mining, some fortunate adventurers, 
in the course of their prospecting, came at various times 
upon gold deposits in the hard quartz, which seemed so 
much at variance with their jDreconceived ideas, and with 
the general experience of gravel miners, that the matter 
was regarded as remarkable. These discoveries, with their 
workings, were the earliest quartz mines, properly so called, 
that this section of the country knew. Of course, with the 
rude machinery then in use, only the very richest quartz — 
that whose contained gold was estimated by hundreds of 
dollars per ton — could be extracted and crushed at a profit. 
Time elapsed, too, before the existence of perfectly barren 
streaks was recognized, often adjoining the greatest golden 



458 HISTORY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 

deposits. Other veins, it was remarked, were not so rich 
in any one spot, but the wealth was ascertained to' be more 
thoroughly disseminated therein. After a series of years 
had elapsed, and after a great expenditure of toil, capital 
and perseverance had been made, it was clearly seen that 
the territory possessed two distinct classes of gold-bearing 
lodes, essentially different in many ways, and remarkably 
so in their disposition of their auriferous chutes and bodies. 
These diametrical features at once gave rise to the expres- 
sive classification into Milling and Pocket Lodes; the 
latter of which, from their present jDrominence and probable 
permanency, merit and demand description and comment. 

Their geographical location is embraced entirely within 
the so-called Eastern and Western Mineral Zones, and, 
therefore, extends from and beyond the Stanislaus River 
on the north, to and beyond the Tuolumne River on the 
south, and from the bisecting reef of limestone running 
northerly and southerly throughout the county, about a 
dozen miles east and west. 

The representative districts are the neighborhoods of 
Jamestown, Raw-hide Ranch, TuUletown, Jackass Hill 
and Robinson's Ferry, on the west, and Sonora, Bald 
Mountain, Yankee HiJl, Five Mile Creek and the Stanislaus 
River, on the east. As a rule, they oblique across the 
country rock, which runs northerly and southerly; appear 
on the crests or ridges of mountains; dip to the northwest, 
at angles varying from 10° to 80°; are from 4 inches to 3 
feet in thickness; have a variable specific gravity, tenacity, 
opacity and color, and are horizontally attended on either 
or both walls by a hard or soft material, of a white, yellow 
or red color, locally termed "dyke," which, in the ab- 
sence of quartz, fills in the fissures, and thus preserves 
their forms and dimensions. The ore bodies do not possess 



GEOLOGY AND MINING. 459 

regular line or extent, but appear and disappear along the 
fissures in the form of chimneys or chutes. 

The gold is flat, cubical and sometimes crystalline, and 
exceedingly free from refractory associations, which ac- 
counts for its superior fineness. Mining in its embryotic 
state was conducted simply as an occupation, without the 
benefit of experience. The gold on float rock, which, by 
the agency of the elements, had been deposited in ravines 
or gulches, was traced to its source, and a pocket was dis- 
covered. This was then extracted with zeal, the location 
abandoned with reluctance, and its conditions, in conjunc- 
tion with the surroundings, dismissed from the mind. 
Rarely was the idea of its continuance or reproduction the 
subject of extended thought. 

It has been customary for the miners during the period 
of the existence of pocket mining to meet in conference, 
exchange experience, invite discussion, and ascend the 
higher planes of reason. And how the license of great re- 
sults permits a submission of the following truths and 
visible causes of pockets. A pocket lode in its linear course 
has many distinct chutes, closely grouped or widely apart, 
the grand one showing it in its greatest strength and 
purity. The longer the intermediate space the larger the 
deposit, because of the superior formative resources. The 
various causes of deposits seem to be crossings, horses, 
elbows and splits, A crossing is a fissure filled with clay, 
dyke or quartz, having a perpendicular, or oblique direc- 
tion across the lead. A horse is a short subdivision of the 
lead into alternate parallel strata of quartz and slate. An 
elbow is an angle, or arc of the lead, tending downward. 
A split is a complete and wide division of the lead into its 
matrix and quartz. Of these the first one is the most reli- 
able and valuable, as the line of intersection is supposed by 
some to make a complete insulation of the electric currents, 



460 HISTOEY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 

and, consequently, the deposits recur. This line is the 
general line of the prospect, and absolutely the one of de- 
velopment. Its direction depends on the dip and trend of 
the lead and crossing. The pockets form on thfi main lead 
at or near the crossing, on either or both sides. But in 
the latter instance only when the lead is intersected by the 
crossing. They commence on or near the surface of the 
lode with a precursory prospect of fine or coarse gold, con- 
tinuing to or ceasing entirely before reaching them. They 
are four, eight, sixteen and forty feet apart, a greater depth 
betAveen denoting a larger find. 

Besides the mineral character of the concomitants, the 
class of slates is all important. A fine-grained, light-blue 
slate accompanies a primary cause and a medium deposit, 
and a heavy, dark blue, metallic slate attends great bo- 
nanzas. The indications in the lead are a hardening and 
softening of the quartz, with a perceptible change of color, 
and a similar change of the ordinary prospects of the dyke, 
added to the presence of a vermillion streak of clay, or 
granulated material. Crystals are also evidence. 

Having done with the cardinal facts concerning cross- 
ings, it is well to state that a horse makes gold at one of 
the three points of its solidification, two of which are on 
the surface and the third one below. A split makes a 
pocket on the line of separation. An elbow throws gold 
below or after the angle or arc. A mine is worked from a 
shaft or tunnel. The shaft is sunk on and follows the line 
of prospect, and the tunnel answers a double purpose, in 
discovery and the hastening of work. A wide diversity of 
opinion exists respecting the continuance of a j^ocket or 
chute, but experience has proven that they depend solely 
on the continued strength and preservation of the crossing. 
Of the different crossings, superiority must be accorded 
that of quartz. Numerous instances could be cited in both 



GEOLOGY AND MIXING. 461 

zones, where the chutes continued to considerable depth 
and gave evidence of permanency, and, therefore, the con- 
clusion is reached that they will become identical with 
milling chutes. The most intelligent men are perfectly 
astounded at a view of the internal works of an old mine, 
so numerous and irregular are the galleries and shafts, and 
so closely do they fringe the location of the gold. Often 
has the dispirited and disconsolate miner, after bemoaning 
his fate, been directed to the pocket by a cave in the wall 
or roof, or by development of the only virgin ground. 

Nowhere in this State, at the present time, is this kind 
of mining so fully appreciated as in this county. Nearly 
all of the old pocket mines thought to be of value are the 
scenes of vigorous operation. !Some of the most prominent 
mines merit especial mention. The Watts Mine, at Robin- 
son's Ferry, is composed of stringers dipping westward 
towards the mother lode, and cutting the slate, and -has 
yielded largely. On Jackass Hill is located the Boyer, 
Watts & Madison Mine, which has been worked to a depth 
of 2U0 feet, and for ten years contributed handsomely. 
The Carringtoii Mine, owned by James Gillis and William 
Waters, in the same locality, was worked for fifteen years 
to a depth of 100 feet. It is from 4 to 6 inches in width, 
and has yielded $100,(00. The Means Mine, adjacent 
thereto, is a vein from 4 inches to 1 foot in width, has been 
worked to a depth of 70 feet, and has aggregated $50,000. 
At Tuttletown, the Cardinal Mine runs with the slate, is 
crossed by threads of quartz accompanied by the indicative 
slate, is developed to a depth of 80 feet, and is from 6 to 
24 inches in thickness. Its jDockets on the same chute were 
from 4 to 8 feet from each other, and produced a total of 
$175,000. The Valparaiso Mine, one mile and a half from 
Tuttletown, on Jackson's Flat, was operated for a series of 
years, successfully. Large deposits were taken out, and it 



462 HISTORY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 

still ranks well. The Neubaumer is a branch of the above 
mine, and has been very rich in free gold and arsenical 
sulphurets. The Brown & Preston Mine, below Jamestown, 
has yielded immensely. John H. Neale's mine, at Woods 
Crossing, was discovered in 1862, by Mexicans. One 
pocket amounted to $30,000. It is now being worked. 
Saratoga Hill, near Shaw's Flat, contains a number of valu- 
able lodes. Three of these, comprised in a transverse space 
of 300 feet, and running parallel, in a northeasterly and 
southwesterly direction, crossed by red and blue clays, are 
owned by M. B. Harriman, and are now being operated. 
The deposits have ranged from $3,000 to $30,000. The 
Carpenter lode, adjoining, owned by F. P. Williams and 
W. J. Van Ausdall, stands nearly vertical, is being re- 
opened, and has credited large accounts to the Hill. 

Excepting the mines on this hill, the crossings consisted 
of black metallic slate, quartz and dyke. The Bonanza 
Mine, owned by Messrs. Divoll and Bray, is located on 
Piety Hill, in the City of Sonora. It cuts the slate, and 
runs northeasterly and southwesterly. It was located in 
the year 1851, by Chilians, and worked by them in company 
with Van Praag. Since then it has been worked by various 
parties, until purchased by the present owners for the sum 
of $50, in the year 1878. This mine, by virtue of its bold 
features and sterling merit, justly stands alone in the 
world, the grandest representative of its class. It has 
jdelded upwards of a half million dollars, and seems to 
defy exhaustion, but the company, for prudential reasons, 
decline to make any statement of its production. 

On the same lode, and also within the city limits, is 
located the Big Nugget claim, discovered in 1868, by Sex- 
ton, and subsequently worked by an English comjoany with 
grdat profit. It was relocated in 1871, by Messrs. DivoU 
and Bray, and in '78 changed hands and became the prop- 



GEOLOGY AND MINING. 463 

erty of Alonzo Colby. A year ago an enormous pocket was 
found, and in order to expedite the work, a tunnel was run 
in from a point below Main street, in Sonora, which now 
taps the lode at a depth from the surface of 300 feet. The 
crossings are dyke. It has been operated day and night 
for over a year, by a large force of men, and its owner an- 
ticipates splendid results. The deposits taken out amount 
to about $13,000. The Keizer Mine, owned by Messrs. 
Harriman & Keil, on Bald Mountain Kange, is a half mile 
north of Sonora, and east of Wood's Creek. It was dis- 
covered in 1854, by Mexicans; was worked to a depth of 90 
feet, and the last flour-sack of material taken from the bot- 
tom turned out $200. It is from 6 inches to 24 inches in 
width, has a northerly and southerly course, has large re- 
serves of undeveloped ground, has yielded wouderfulh^ 
and promises future great results. In close proximity to 
this is the Sell Mine, running two points east of north, and 
cutting the ridge diagonally. It is the property of William 
Sell, and since its location, in 1850, up to this date, has 
given forth $200,000. A tunnel taps the mine about 255 
feet from the surface, and extends into the hill and along 
the lead nearly 265 feet, and has exposed 8 different chutes, 
whose respective pockets have been from $10,000 to $15,000. 
Its crossings consist of dyke, from 3 feet to 5 feet across, 
and having a southei'ly trend. The pockets are found on 
the north side of these. The quartz contains small quanti- 
ties of sulphuretsof lead and iron. This is a fine property, 
and is being constantly worked. The Suckerman Lode, a 
little north and east of these mines, was located in the year 
1851. It was worked by Peruvians, on the north side of 
the ridge, with great success, but was abandoned for a 
while, and relocated in '63, with Charles Sell as the Super- 
intendent, under the name of "The Sophia." A tunnel 
strikes it 300 feet under ground, but lacks considerable of 



464 HISTORY OF TUOLUMNE COU^fTY. 

being reached by the shafts above. The prospects are 
good, but the linear exploration has been very meager. It 
has granite and dyke crossings, and is thought to have 
yielded $150,000. It is being worked by J. H. Neale, the 
present owner. On Bald Mountain proper, 3 miles north- 
east of Sonora, are situated the Paterson and Turner, 
Austrian, and Ford lodes. The Paterson and Turner, which 
is a flat lead, is located and owned by Messrs. E. A. Gar- 
rett, Paul Bauli, Antone Violitch and Blass Eadovich. 
These locations yielded collectively about |100,000. The 
Austrian has a number of chutes, has been worked ex- 
tensively, and has footed up $80,000. The Ford has two 
chutes, is opened by shafts to a depth of 150 feet, and has 
yielded $150,000. Still further northward we find the Fox, 
Ham and Jersey, Nathaniel Arnold, and Keed mines, all 
of which are working, and are properties of the first order. 
In both zones there are hundreds of mines which have 
thrown pockets of from $200 to $4,000. 



Gravel, or Placer Mining. * 

The history of gravel mining in Tuolumne is, for its 
earlier years, the history of the county. Almost the only 
pursuit of the early inhabitants, all the interest necessarily 
attaches to that pursuit. Nearly every individual who came 
into the Southern Mines daring the first decade after the 
discovery of gold came to mine with pan and rocker; each 
one, whatever may have been his previous condition in life, 
entering upon the work with the same advantages and 
chances of success. Nearly every man in this State who 
came prior to 1860, and many who arrived later, have 



GEOLOGY AKD MINING. 465 

delved in the placer mines, and many individuals of promi- 
nence point back with unmistakeable pride to their share 
in the labors which gave to California her proud pre-emi- 
nence as a land of gold mines, and the celebrity that reaches 
the world over. 

The placers gave to California a population and a his- 
tory. Directly upon the dissemination of the welcome 
news of the finding of gold at Sutter's Fort, the tide of im- 
migration set at once to the foothills of the Sierra, and 
Tuolumne, among other regions, was entered and pros- 
pected. 

It has been seen in the body of this work how scantily 
these first comers were provided with the means of subsist- 
ence; and they were not less ill provided with the means 
for carrying on even the simple work of separating the gold 
from the dirt. All such articles as shovels, pans, pick- 
axes, etc., from an excessive demand, reached an exorbi- 
tant price. Many men, unable to procure tools, extempo- 
rized the necessary articles from such materials as came to 
their hands. Milk pans and other dishes were made to 
serve in place of the present gold pan of pressed iron, 
seamless and durable. Knives were made to serve instead 
of picks and shovels, and the ex-soldiers of a mounted 
regiment who discovered Dragoon Gulch used, it is said, 
their sabres for the purpose of digging. 

Nevertheless, such was the abundance of the gold, that 
men, without any of the apparatus which is now considered 
essential for gravel mining, extracted with ease sums 
amounting to thousands of dollars in short spaces of time. 
A discovery of a fortune in a day or a week was of not un- 
common occurrence, and innumerable instances are on 
record where fortunate men took out enough iu a few 
months to make their future lives free from care. 



466 HISTORY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 

It would be useless to multiply examples of this sort. 
The fact seems certain that early in the " fifties" fortunes 
were at the command of those who would work steadily 
for them, while it is equally as certain that success de- 
pended a great deal on knowing where to work. 

Placer mining has never required the exercise of great 
skill or previous knowledge, nor the introduction of costly 
machinery; hence, as a pursuit it has been within the reach 
of everybody. Still, there is room for the exercise of 
judgment and the teachings of experience. Much time 
was spent before the existence of placers, in ground other 
than the beds of watercourses, was suspected, and when 
gold was found in elevated places, even the tops of lofty 
hills, its occurrence could not be accounted for, though 
subsequent researches have settled that and similar ques- 
tions. 

It was mentioned that rudely extemporized tools were at 
first in use in gravel mining. Of course, the inventive 
genius of the American people could not rest until labor- 
saving devices had been introduced by means of which a 
much greater quantity of dirt could be washed. The first 
efforts of ingenuity gave rise to the cradle, or rocker, a 
machine which still survives, finding limited use in pros- 
pecting, etc. By means of the rocker two men, one shovel- 
ing the auriferous dirt, the other sitting beside it ^nd 
giving it motion with one hand while he j)oured water 
upon the fresh dirt from a dipper held in the other, could 
wash out as much gold as a score of men could do with the 
former device, the pan. As might be expected from the 
scarcity of lumber and all other materials, the earliest con- 
structed rockers were somewhat costly objects. Accord- 
ingly, we find a certain miner paying one hundred and fifty 
dollars for one which a Mexican had constructed by hollow- 
ing out a section of a tree, and which weighed as many 



GEOLOaY AND IrHNING. 467 

pounds as the purchaser gave dollars for it. Later, when 
whip-saws were introduced, and a little lumber was pro- 
duced, these indispensable articles became less costly and 
difficult to procure. 

The next prominent invention for washing the dirt was 
the Tom, which consists essentially of a box for the recep- 
tion of the dirt, from which a short sluice leads away. 
The necessary water being introduced from a running 
stream obviates the labor of pouring it upon the dirt from 
a dipper, and the motion sideways is obviated by providing 
the sluice down which the gravel is carried, and which 
admits of the gold settling to the bottom in its passage, 
where it is retained by rifiies, made by inserting strips of 
wood crosswise of the current. 

Here again was a great saving in labor, the scope of a 
man's energies, by the aid of the new apparatus, being en- 
larged several fold. Toms, representing the second great 
step in gravel mining, remained in use until the great in- 
vention of sluices. Until the ditches brought large and 
constant streams of water, sluices were not practicable, and 
we have seen at a previous page how and when the great 
ditches to which the country owes so much, came to be con- 
structed. 

Simultaneously with the introduction of improved labor- 
saving devices for working placer ground, came the ex- 
tinction of these rich placers from which the fabulous early 
yields had been obtained. The rich creek bottoms had 
been first worked out and then abandoned, to be again and 
again worked over, until with each succeeding re-working 
the returns became so scanty as to not repay the labor ex- 
pended, even at the diminished prices that prevailed. 
Mormon Creek, whose dirt paid at an average rate of one 
thousand dollars to each claim of ten feet square, the size 
fixed upon by the Miners' Union of these diggings, paid 



468 HISTORY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 

nearly half that amount at its second working. And this, 
in consequence not only of the improved methods of work- 
ing, was also partly due to the more careful examination of 
the seams and crevices in the bedrock. Succeeding years 
have made such examinations of the underlying stratum 
more and more necessary, until now, when the process of 
exploring the upper surface of the slate or other rock upon 
which the gravels rest is carried to the most extreme nicet}', 
and a spot of ground is not now supposed to be exhausted 
of its store of wealth until every means short of microscop- 
ical examinations is brought into use for discovering the 
infinitesimal remains of the j)recious metal. But more and 
more careful working has not kept up the production of 
gold to its original hight. The permanent falling off of 
the gold production began, by 1859, to be an assured fact. 
The placers o? Tuolumne had begun to be exhausted, and 
with the exhaustion of the known beds no new discoveriea, 
extensive enough to replace the worn out placers, were 
made. None of the known placers have been of great 
depth; the deepest workings of which mention has been 
made do not much exceed one hundred feet. Lying ex- 
posed to the surface, it is no wonder that their extinction 
was a matter of a short time. Now the process of placer 
mining has passed away from Tuolumne. Only a few, 
mostly Chinese and others content with the meagre results 
that keep body and soul together, remain laboring in the 
gravel beds. 

The history of the rich strikes of the past years reads 
like an Arabian fairy tale. In every issue of the early 
papers the columns teem with accounts of sudden wealth 
achieved in this way. Thus we read that a claim at Pine 
Log paid four hundred dollars to the pan, but, as might be 
expected, the golden stream did not flow long. In 1853 
twenty-eight pounds of gold, mainly in one chunk, were 



GEOLOGY AND MINING. 469 

taken out of a claim in Sonora, in one day. This claim, 
which was owned by eight partners, was situated on Sonora 
Creek, opposite the printing office. A month later a lucky 
Mexican found a specimen of the value of two thousand 
seven hundred and fifty dollars, at Martinez. H. A. Stearns 
and partner, near Columbia, tried to sell their claim for 
thirty dollars, bat failing, they continued to work it, taking 
out, next day, fifty-five ounces of gold. As late as 1854, 
Messrs. Hopkins and Meek took out from fifty to seventy - 
five dollars daily to each hand employed, and this con- 
tinued for months. Their claim was at Campbell's Flat. 
The " Maine Boys," at Columbia, took out from their claim 
from ten to twenty ounces each, daily. An Italian at Pine 
Gulch labored for weeks without making anything, at the 
end of that time securing a lump of memorable size and 
value, the largest, perhaps, that was found during that 
year (1854). It weighed twenty-three pounds eight ounces, 
and sold for four thousand eight hundred dollars. Nearly 
at the same time Captain Bradford found a three-pound 
chunk in his claim at Bensonville. A twenty-five pound 
lump, of which fourteen pounds were gold, was taken out 
in Sonora shortly after; value, about three thour^and dol- 
lars. At Caldwell's Garden, near Shaw's Flat, four men 
took out of the Table Mountain lead twenty ounces dailj^ 
for a long time. A cart-load of their dirt was worth 
twenty-five ounces. In December, 1855, some Frenchmen 
near Garrote secured in one day three thousand five hun- 
dred dollars, from two hundred pans of dirt taken from the 
bed of the river. In the same month an immense nugget 
was taken from the ground directly in front of the present 
County Hospital in Sonora. It was described as being 
fourteen inches long and eight or nine inches wide and 
thick, and its value was set at about thirteen hundred dol- 
lars. It was evidently not entirely composed of gold. About 



470 HISTORY or TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 

this time Strain, of Columbia, found an enormous nugget, 
whose size was twelve, by ten, by six inches, and whose 
weight was sixty-six pounds avoirdupois ! The value of the 
find was estimated at eight thousand dollars, and the lucky 
possessor sold ijb for seven thousand four hundred and 
thirty-eight dollars, after breaking off chunks to give to 
his friends as presents. In 1858 Robinson & Co., at Amer- 
ican Camp, found a two thousand-dollar nugget. One year 
later, Virgin & Co., near Columbia, found a lump of pure 
gold, which weighed four hundred and fifty-one ounces and 
sold for six thousand seven hundred and fifty dollars. 

These brief notes will show to some extent the munifi- 
cent rewards that miners have met in these mines, which 
are now so worn out and exhausted. Nothing like an ac- 
curate account of the great finds can be attempted, how- 
ever, for probably not one-half of the notable finds were 
ever reported at all, for obvious reasons. 

Here follows an announcement of some of the more no- 
table finds made previous to 18G0. It is copied from Ban- 
croft's Mining Handbook, and is not in any way complete, 
being gathered from the files of the AUa California for the 
years denoted. As far as it goes, it may be presumed to be 
reliable. It will be seen to make no mention of the 
gigantic mass of quartz and gold which was found at Hol- 
den's Gardens in 1850, and which yielded thirty thousand 
dollars, and the truth of the report of which rests upon 
the editor of the Sonora Herald. 

1850. 

23 lbs. , Woods' Diggings February 20th 

5 lbs. , near Sonora March Gth 

51 oz. , Sonora April 2d 

23 lbs. 2 oz., Sonora .May 14th 

10 lbs. 11 oz., Sonora May 14th 



GEOLOGY AND MINING. 471 

18 lbs. , Sonera June 7th 

4 lbs. 4 oz. , Jamestown April 11th 

13 lbs., Sonora October 14th 

1851. 

28 lbs. 4 oz. , Sonora October 5th 

24 lbs., Sonora October 5th 

23 lbs. 6 oz., near Sonora October 5th 

69 oz., Wood's Creek December 1st 

1852. 

$90, Sonora January 6th 

12 oz., Sonora January 6th 

$1100, Sonora January 10th 

$900, Sonora January 10th 

$80, Sonora January 10th 

26 oz. , Shaw's Flat August 15th 

116 oz., Shaw's Flat November 23d 

1853. 

29 oz., near Sonora January 18th 

20 lbs. 7 oz., near Sonora February 19th 

$1500, near Sonora February 21st 

9 oz., near Sonora February 24th 

7 lbs., near Sonora February 25th 

69 oz., near Columbia February 26th 

7 oz. , near Sonora March 4th 

116 oz. , Columbia May 2d 

24 oz. , Columbia May 2d 

18 oz., Columbia May 13th 

15 oz. , Columbia May 13th 

11 oz., Columbia May 13th 

9 lbs., Indian Gulch May 16th 

36 oz. , Yankee Hill June 5th 

12 oz., Shaw's Flat June 12th 



472 HISTORY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 

4 oz. , Shaw's Flat June 13th 

30 oz. , Sonora June 29th 

71 OZ., Sonora June 29th 

7 lbs. 8 oz., Indian Gulch 

1854. 

11^ oz., Sonora February 11th 

27^ lbs., Columbia March 23d 

1 lb., Jamestown June — 

#$400, Springfield June 

2 lbs , near Columbia June 

16J lbs. , Sonora July 

72 lbs., near Columbia September 

17 lbs. , Sonora November 

1855. 

30 lbs. , near Sonora January 

1858. 

41 oz. , Columbia May 

13 oz. , Columbia May 

11 oz., Saw Mill Flat May 

47 oz., Columbia July 

15 oz. , Columbia September 

38^ lbs. , Columbia September 

33 oz., Columbia September 

In the portion of this article which treats of the origin 
of gold, it has been said that originally it was contained 
in the veins of quartz which intersected the slate which 
has now vanished, worn away by the action of the running 
streams. This statement deserves more extended treat- 
ment than has been accorded to it. 

To trace the descent of a piece of gold from the time of 
its formation, or the aggregation of its different molecules, 
down to the time when it was found in this age by the 



GEOLOGY AND MINING. 473 

hardy miner, is an extremely interesting topic, and one 
•which it may be said has never b^en dealt with in its full- 
est details in the light of the latest discoveries in geologi- 
cal science. Let us then, since the topic is in a fair way 
to be satisfactorily settled, be among the first to adopt (for 
the time) the theories regarding, first, the origin and dis- 
pensation of gold in the slate crust of the earth, and sec- 
ond, those well-attested geological facts which relate to 
the gradual wearing away of thousands of feet of those 
slates with their contained quartz veins, and see if a rea- 
sonable cause may not be found for the existence of placer 
gold within the sands of the streams, as well as that which 
is found upon high elevations. 

We may accept as a fact the sometime existence of a 
plain, where now the Sierra rises and where the foothills 
cluster about the mountains' base. At that time thousands 
of feet of slate strata lay horizontally upon each other, all 
doubtless containing numerous veins of quartz, probably 
some barren, but many containing gold which was brought 
to them, at the time of their formation, by the agencies of 
chemical affinity, solution and heat. We can imagine 
nothing less than that after these slate deposits were 
formed numerous fissures of greater or less depth were 
formed in them, much as cracks are formed in clay soils 
on the water drying out. These fissures, we may further 
imagine, were filled in the course of time with liquids of 
various sorts, which contained chemical compounds, and 
which were excessively hot — perhaps far hotter than boil- 
ing water, for it is well known that, under pressure, 
water can be heated even red-hot. These conditions make 
it possible, as we see from the extracts from Professor Le 
Conte's book, for quartz veins to be so formed; and in- 
deed they could hardly help forming if all these condi- 
tions, or even part of them, were complied with. So, we 



474 HISTOKY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 

may agree, the quartz veins came to exist. Keturning now 
to tlie time when the slates began to wear away, we can 
easily imagine that as this wearing process went on, the 
rivers that then existed would carry the fragments (mostly 
small and rounded) to the lower lands and deposit them 
there. This they did; for there is the evidence of many 
localities to prove the existence of gold-bearing gravels, 
hundreds of feet in thickness, containing skeletons of ani- 
mals, and fossil plants, which were swept down the river at 
the time when the gravel, also, was being carried down- 
ward. These rivers evidently ran into lakes, for we find 
the particles of gravel sized by the settling action of the 
still waters. Consequently we may regard the slates, 
which were originally dejDOsited from water, as being for 
the second time so deposited, but in a modified form. 

We haf e now got as far as the lake deposits of gold- 
bearing gravel. These deposits were, as might be ex- 
pected, comparatively poor in gold, because the winnowing 
action of the water had not been such as to remove the 
vast bulk of gravel, which consequently served to dilute 
the mass, so to speak, and render it less rich than those 
portions of gravel which in other periods of the earth's 
history have passed down . irregular and rapid streams, 
leaving a portion of the worthless rock, together with the 
heaviest of the gold particles, settled into crevices and hol- 
lows in the bed of the stream. 

In the deposits, all vastly ancient, of gravels of this de- 
scription in lakes, not many are left in Tuolumne; but in 
Nevada and Butte Counties, with their neighbors to the 
north of us, miles and miles still remain, and give rise to 
the enormous hydraulic mining interest, with its attendant 
*' slickens " evil. Those gravels are not rich; a dozen 
cents from each cubic yard usually pays the miner, because 
by the j)owerf ul streams of water which are directed against 



GEOLOGY AND MINING. 475 

the high banks, a vast amount of earth can be washed. A 
dollar per yard, or perhaps two dollars, is about the rich- 
est yield of such gravels. In former daj^s a considerable 
amount of hydraulic mining was done at Saw Mill Flat, 
near Columbia, and even at this day a few known banks 
still exist to be worked, and quite probably other deposits 
may yet be found, even where their existence is at present 
entirely unsuspected. 

The formation of these beds, which are the most ancient 
placers, of course preceded the formation of the late river 
beds. At the time that they were forming, and for a long 
time subsequent, the country presented an aspect far dif- 
ferent to that which it bears at present. The rivers ran 
courses entirely distincb from those at present, and lakes 
existed whose extent is not known, but must have been 
very great. 

Following the deposition of the first auriferous gravels 
came a time when great changes took place. Extensile 
upheavals and subsidences took place, rivers ran with full 
banks across or at right angles to the former channels, 
and the rains became excessive — all these changes leading 
to the washing away, in part, of the previously formed 
gravel beds, and the diffusion of their constituents over 
other areas, perhaps far removed from their former sites. 
The rivers that did this work ran over irregular beds, which 
they wore away piecemeal, dropping into their cavities in 
limestone or in slate, the heavier particles which they had 
removed from their resting places in the higher altitudes. 
These particles, mostly broken from the slate, but some of 
it common quartz sand, held among it a portion of gold in 
greater or less quantity, which also became entangled in 
the crevices, or lost in the sand or pebbles of the bottom 
of the stream, there to remain until succeeding freshets 



476 HISTOKY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 

had removed it again and again from its place, or until the 
tireless miner's hand had plucked it up. 

It is not likely that more than an extremely small per- 
centage of all the gold staid upon the bottom of the river 
in the immediate vicinity of the beds from which it was 
washed. Probably not one hundredth part of the entire 
wealth of the veins which had been worn down ever re- 
mained at points now accessible to man. Doubtless the 
vastly greater portion, in particles of exceedingly small 
size, passed downward as "float" gold, only finding a rest- 
ing place in the comparatively level reaches in the lower 
course of the stream, or perhaps reaching the ocean itself. 
By far the greater portion of the gold as it exists in most 
quartz veins (milling veins) is in particles too small to be 
seen by the naked eye, and which float in water under ordi- 
nary circumstances. This fact, coupled with the additional 
one of the vast preponderance of milling veins over those 
in which the gold is in comparatively large pieces, shows 
conclusively that by far the greater part of the metal must 
have escaped. Undoubtedly all of the placer gold, prop- 
erly so called, came from pocket veins. Milling veins could 
have had no part in the supply of the modern placers, 
though they probably supplied a large part of the gold in 
the ancient beds. This winnowing and sizing action of the 
water, then, we may conclude, has cost to mankind the 
whole of the minute particles of gold contained in the 
enormous slate strata which formerly rested upon what is 
now the surface of Tuolumne. 

The consideration relating to the dispersion of the finer 
particles of gold will probably be accepted without ques- 
tion. At any rate it does not affect the present race of men 
whether the gold be baried beneath many feet of strata in 
the San Joaquin and Sacramento valleys, or whether it has 
found some other abiding place. In any case, nothing 



GEOLOGY AND MINING. 477 

short of great geological changes can ever bring it to light 
again, though it is by no means certain that such changes 
will not take place, upheaving great sections of rock, which, 
if in an elevated situation, will be again washed away by 
the water, and again the gold may be winnowed out to ap- 
pear in future placers, to be utilized by the exertions of 
future races of gold-seekers. 

This topic, though interesting, must give way to the 
more practical one of what placers still remain. As re- 
marked, the washing away of the surface to a great depth 
has been so general in Tuolumne that it is useless to look 
for the existence of ancient gravels in situations which 
would have rendered them exposed to the running streams. 
But it happens that portions of the surface of this region 
have been so circumstanced as to be entirely protected from 
the tearing down influences of the water. These portions 
are covered by volcanic products. These products — basaltic 
lava in one case, a light pumice stone or breccia in the 
other cases — overlie a portion of the country, and obvi- 
ously have preserved the ground on which they rest. In 
the eastern portion of the county, about Soulsbyville and 
other places, these breccia deposits appear on the crests of 
hills, or often crop out at the sides of hills, presenting a 
palisaded appearance. This arises from the very large tracts 
having been covered by the outflow, which, after being de- 
posited, (presumably upon auriferous gravels, as there is 
no evidence that the matters beneath were of any but slaty 
origin), was worn away in places, valleys and canons being 
formed and the lava upon the hills which remained being 
left intact. 

It is in the gravels underlying the breccia that future 
discoveries of gold-bearing matters may be expected. In 
times j)ast such discoveries have been hinted at; but, ex- 
cepting near Soulsbyville, no systematic attempt has been 



478 HISTORY OF TCOLUMNE COUNTY. 

made to explore the ground. Probably in no case will 
those de^DOsits be found very rich unless some river-bed be 
met with, which itself is not very probable. 

From a cursory view of the circumstances, it would ap- 
pear that the only probability of the existence of large 
deposits of gold-bearing gravel is, as pointed out above, 
beneath the lava deposits; and those may well be. worth 
exploring in the localities mentioned, while the utmost cer- 
tainty exists that there is gold in the ancient river channels 
beneath Table Mountain, which we will now proceed to 
discuss. 

The existence of river gravel beneath the basaltic lava 
was unsuspected until the year 1855, when it was discovered 
at the bottom of a shaft which was being sunk at Caldwell's 
Garden, near Shaw's Flat. At this point, the lava which 
had formerly covered it had been denuded and its traces 
lost, but the underlying gravel had remained, and was 
found to yield gold in immense quantities. Miners at once 
set to work to follow the course of the newly found lead, 
which ran under the basaltic formation further to the west. 
Great interest was felt in the new discoveries; all the avail- 
able ground was staked oif, and many shafts were sunk, at 
a place which was given the name of " Whim Town," from 
the large number of whims there set up to facilitate work- 
ing those shafts. The lead first found is known to have 
been one of the richest deposits of gold-bearing gravel ever 
found in California. First raising the golden sands to the 
surface, spending in that manner the Summer months, the 
fortunate finders, when water became plenty in the ensuing 
Autumn, washed their gi'eat piles of rich dirt, taking thence 
gold to the amount of five, ten or more pounds daily, the 
aggregate yield of the several claims being sixfy or seventy 
2)ounds each day. 

Mr. Caldwell took out of his claim, it is suj^posed, over 



GEOLOGY AND MINING. 479 

one hundred and fifty thousand dollars; and after its sale 
to other parties, a like sum was realized. The Aiken claim 
was scarcely less rich, producing two hundred and seven- 
teen thousand. The Sidewiper produced sixty or seventy 
thousand, and the Baxter hardly less, while the Jackson 
and Columbia claims produced immensely, also. 

The gold was in every case found imbedded in the sand 
and gravel, as evenly distributed as happens in the modern 
rivers; and indeed presents a striking likeness in every re- 
spect to those rivers which have yielded largely, as the 
Tuolumne, Stanislaus, etc. The richest gravel was, as 
might be expected, found near the bedrock, which gen- 
erally consists of slate. Rich spots were found in cavities, 
which yielded many pounds of gold. 

In the course of years many tunnels and inclines were 
run to tap the channels, which were soon found to exist in 
great length. For several miles on either side of the 
mountain these tunnels recur at short intervals. A gigantic 
amount of labor has been expended on the work, but with 
disproportionately small results. Although some of the 
companies who have operated therein have reaped a plen- 
tiful harvest, more there were who got nothing for their 
pains. The chief reason seems to have been the little un- 
derstanding that men had at the beginning, of the direction 
which the gravel leads took; the small means possessed by 
the individuals who composed those companies, there often 
being but two or three, whose work was necessarily long 
and expensive. Added to these facts, the influx of water 
from the highly permeable stratum of gravel was so great 
as to effectually check further opei^ations in many claims. 
Gradually work was given up all along the line, until now 
very few are occupied in developments, the numerous works 
falling to decay. 

It is not to be inferred that they are permanently aban- 



480 HISTORY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 

doned, however; within a few years a noticeable revival in 
interest concerning the leads has taken place, and although 
little progress has as yet been made beyond the formation 
of new companies and the issuing of j)rospectuses, there is 
a bright prospect for future work, which is almost sure to 
pay. Arrangements have been made to consolidate the old 
claims into properties which can be more conveniently 
handled and worked. The old tunnels low down on the 
lead are to be utilized to drain the ground, and work is to 
be carried on systematically. Among the great difficulties 
that have been met with was the difficulty of supporting 
the immense mass of superincumbent sandstone, "pipe- 
clay" and basalt, which, mostly loose in texture, threat- 
ened to crush the supports of the roofs of galleries and 
immense vacant spaces from which the gravel has been re- 
moved; and, in fact, serious accidents have occurred, 
causing death in several instances. These drawbacks are 
expected to be met in an efficient manner. 

Among the new companies which propose to themselves 
the working of these concealed placers, the Tuolumne 
Table Mountain Gold Mining Company attracts the largest 
share of attention, controlling, as it does, the ground upon 
which the best known of the older claims were situated. 
For one hundred thousand dollars these four mines, the 
Empire, Hidden Treasure, Bedrock Blue Gravel and Cald- 
well, have been purchased. The old locations combined in 
these are the American, Obar, Lager Beer, Independent, 
Virginia, Nelson, Gold Hunter, Jim Fair, Aiken, Baxter, 
Captain Mann, Peck & Davis, Fillmore and others, many 
of Avhich have produced large sums in former years, and 
from which greater results may be expected. Possessing 
every facility for working, such as draining tunnels at 
various points, a permanent water supply from the ditch of 



GEOLOGY AND MINING. 481 

the Tuolumne County Water Company, the new organiza- 
tion confidently expect rich results. 

In addition to the proposed workings in Table Mountain 
proper, the company propose to drain the basin of Shaw's 
Flat, and enable certain untouched ground that still re- 
mains therein to be worked. This project appears very 
feasible, as it is well remembered that the locality was one 
of the richest in all the Southern Mines, but which, for 
want of drainage, could not be fully prospected and worked. 
Several miles, they say, could be thus re-worked with profit, 
as the new system of drainage would enable explorations to 
go on at a depth of several hundred feet. 

As has often been said, a great length of these aurifer- 
ous channels exists in Tuolumne, the extent of them having 
been estimated by some at one hundred miles, of which 
not more than a tenth have so far been prospected. There 
seems to be no reason why the vicinity of Shaw's Flat 
should afford richer placers than any other section of the 
concealed river beds; and the probability certainly is that 
it is not richer there than at other points, it only happen- 
ing that its riches were more easily available. A. portion of 
the work of the next century will doubtless be in unearth- 
ing such deposits and in realizing the wealth which is stoi'ed 
within them. This can be done more easily at present than 
in the past, inasmuch as the diminished prices of labor and 
materials permit tunnels to be run and other necessary 
works to be carried to completion at half the cost which 
attended them in former times, and the future years will 
doubtless see a still further proportionate elimination of 
expense in such works. 

Much remains to be written concerning the placer mining 
of Tuolumne, but the narrow limits to which this article 
can extend forbid further mention of the sources from 
which further wealth may be expected to be derived. Cer- 



482 HISTOKY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY, 

tainly it is not right to regard the mining interest of the 
section as exhausted. No intelligent observer can so con- 
clude. On the contrary, much work will yet be done upon 
the placer claims, with good results. A plan to drain, the 
limestone plateau between Columbia and Shaw's Flat has 
been mooted, but whether it will be carried out remains 
for the future to determine. The probabilities are that in 
case a tunnel were run from a low point on the Stanislaus 
Eiver, beneath the limestone, so as to intercept the sources 
of the water which is so abundant beneath the surface of 
the flat, not sufficient gold could be extracted to repay the 
necessarily enormous expenses of such a work, for although 
the metal has been abundant in the crevices at the top, yet 
it must be remembered that as it was dej)osited therein by 
waters flowing over the surface, but small chance exists of 
its having penetrated to a depth much greater than at 
present explored. It may happen, however, that some 
localities in the limestone, small in extent and situated in 
considerable depressions, may yet be found where the gold 
exists in quantities almost unheard of. Such a discovery 
becomes more probable as the lower depths aro reached. 
The above observations on the geology and miniug of 
Tuolumne embrace all that it is deemed advisable to in- 
clude within the present work. Most of the facts stated 
are matters of common knowledge, but the generalizations 
and deductions therefrom have not before been in print. 
It has not been the object of the writer to do more than to 
give utterance to a few pregnant facts which would seem 
to him to be of some value to whoever may have interest 
in mining affairs in Tuolumne; and if anything therein 
sets the sagacious mind to thinking and produces good re- 
sults, the exertions of the compiler will be abundantly 
repaid. 



MILLS AND MANUFACTURES. 483 

Mills and Manufactures. 

The earliest demands of the bustling population who 
early arrived within the gold region were for articles of 
provision, for tools, and for lumber with which to construct 
the flumes, rockers, and other accessories of mining life, 
and for the important uses of house building. During the 
first years the production of lumber was necessarily lim- 
ited, and the article was of correspondingly high price. 
Men earned extravagant wages by sawing planks out by 
hand — pit sawing, it was called. 

The first records that we have of any important move in 
the direction of lumber making, are the accounts of Major 
Charbonell's steam saw mill, situated in Sonora, on land 
bought from C. F. and T. Dodge, for $150. The existence 
of this pioneer mill was short, but it was succeeded by 
numerous others, driven by either steam or water power, 
and situated in various portions of the county. 

Soon after Charbonell's experiment, Messrs. Heslep & 
Manning built a sawmill on Woods' Creek, on the present 
site of Mr. Bell's Flouring Mill. Subsequently a run of 
stones was added, and Heslep & Bell commenced the manu- 
facture of flour, Mr. Bell succeeding to the present busi- 
ness. 

Somewhat later than Messrs. Heslep & Manning's ven- 
ture, Mr. Caleb Dorsey erected a mill on Mormon Creek, 
near Springfield, with the double object of sawing lumber 
and of hoisting water for the use of the miners of Shaw's 
Flat. Failing m his objects, he removed his mill to Saw- 
mill Flat, and engaged in lumber making, with good suc- 
cess. 

At about the same time, or a little later, Messrs. Stacy, 
Bennett & Turner built also a sawmill on the Flat, selling 
out at a later period to J. W. Brazee. This gentleman 



484 HISTOEY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 

failed in business, and Messrs. Whitney & Van Vecliten 
became proprietors of the mill. 

Mills were erected in the vicinity of nearly every im- 
portant mining camp, but the enormous demand for lumber 
was but partially met. Extravagant prices ruled at first, 
but the multiplicity of sawmills, by the year 1853, had 
brought them down to a reasonable figure. Thus, after 
the great fire in Sonora in October, 1853, boards were 
quoted at $50 to $60 per thousand. Not a very high price, 
considering the times and the gi'eat demand for rebuilding 
purposes. 

In the course of time the lower and central portions of 
the county were denuded of trees, and the mills were 
compelled to remove eastward, to keep within reach of the 
forests which they were so rapidly consuming. 

Somewhat later — in the year 1856 — there were twenty- 
four sawmills in the countj^, running thirty-four saws. 
Of these mills, fourteen were driven by steam, and the 
remainder by water power. This is the list: 

Clapp & Brazee, 8 miles east of Sonora, 4 saws; Heslep 
& Trayler, 7 miles east of Sonora, 4 saws; Whitney & Van 
Vechten, steam, 3 miles east of Columbia, 2 saws; Smith, 
Morne & Co., 6 miles east of Columbia, 2 saws and a plan- 
ing machine — the only one in the county; Nye, 11 miles 
east of Sonora, steam, 2 saws; Major Prevost, 11 miles east 
of Sonora, 1 saw; Davis & Co., 15 miles east of Sonora, 2 
saws and a shingle machine; Severance & Co., 4 miles 
southeast of Sonora, 2 saws ; Latimer, steam, 1 saw; 
Mountain Pine Mill, steam, 10 miles east of Sonora, 1 saw; 
Reed & Co., near Garrote, steam, 2 saws; Smith, Hunt & 
Co., between Garrote and Coulterville, steam, 2 saws; 
Bean & Co., between Garrote and Coulterville, steam, 2 
saws; Bailey & Morgan, 12 miles east of Sonora, steam, 1 
saw; Sugar Pine, 18 miles east of Sonora, water, 2 saws; 



MILLS AND MANUFACTURES. 485 

Enterprise, 11 miles east of Sonora, water, 2 saws; Char- 
bonell, east of Souora, 1 saw; Lewis & Engle, 2 miles 
east of Columbia, water, 1 saw; "Woodham & Co., 6 miles 
east of Columbia, water, 1 saw; Street, Tuolumne River, 
above Jacksonville, 1 saw; Vine Springs, near Columbia, 
water, 1 saw; Mountain Brow, Mormon Creek, near Spring- 
field, water, 1 saw; Zootman, Mormon Creek, water, 1 saw; 
Talbot, mouth of Woods' Creek, water, 1 saw. 

The amount of lumber manufactured by the above mills 
in 1855 was about 15,000,000 feet, worth an average of $30 
per M. The total cost of the mills was perhaps $375,000. 
In and about them 250 men found active employment, at 
wages ranging from $50 to $100 per month and found. 
About two thirds of the lumber was used for mining pur- 
poses, the remainder for building and fencing. The timber 
cut was mainly sugar, yellow, and nut pine, and cedar, with 
some oak and spruce. 



Quartz Mills. 

The Alabama Mill may be taken as the typical gold mill, 
a description of which will enable the reader to seize in his 
mind the salient facts connected with the simple process of 
milling gold quartz . 

In 1880 this magnificent forty-stamp mill was put up, 
and has been kept in almost continual operation ever 
since. The mill consists of a wooden building, arranged 
in successive levels, in order to facilitate the moveraent of 
the quartz by gravity. There are forty stamps, each weigh- 
ing 800 lbs., which receive broken rock from two Dodge 
rock-breakers, by means of intermediate automatic feeders 
of the Tulloch patent. 

The stamps, moving at the rate of eighty-five drops per 
minute, having a small drop, probably not over five or pos- 



486 HISTORY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 

sibly six inches, crush the quartz to suitable fineness, to 
the amount of sixty tons daily. Within the battery, plates 
take up by far the greater percentage of the gold, the 
remainder, with the slimes, passing over electro-plated 
copper plates, contained in the bottoms of sluices, from the 
ends of which the slimes run over blankets, for the pur- 
pose of catching the contained sulphurets. 

The course taken with the quartz u^jon its removal from 
the vein by blasting, etc., is as follows: A car, running 
upon a railroad track, transports it to the mill, by way of 
the tunnel. Reaching the mill, a distance of some two 
hundred feet, it enters the building at t)he top, and is dis- 
charged over " grizzlies " (inclined grate bars, about an inch 
apart), thus separating the finer particles from the coarse 
masses. The latter enter the jaws of the powerful rock- 
breakers (massive cast-iron-and-steel constructions, whose 
moving pans approach with irresistible force, crushing 
even the hardest stone, as if it were brittle wood). From 
thence it takes its way downward, without the intervention 
of human exertion, into the huge ore-bins, whence gravity, 
in due time, assists it into the feeders. 

We have seen that the whole progress of the quartz is 
unattended with the slightest muscular exertion on the 
part of any employee; all the apparatus supplies its own 
wants, working automatically, and as efficiently as if 
guided and directed by the acutest brain power and the 
most unwearied attention. 

For purposes of comparison, let us turn to the descrip- 
tion of the mill of the Experimental Quartz Company, 
which was erected in the Summer of 1854, in Experimental 
Gulch, at a distance of a mile or two from Columbia. This 
mill, one of the very first of the kind ever put up in Cali- 
•fornia, is thus described : 

" The motive power was water, of which there was suffi- 



MILLS AND MAKITFACTURES. 487 

cient to drive sixteen stamps, but only eight stamps were 
used. The quartz was shoveled [probably after preliminary 
breaking] into two large receivers, or boxes, by means of a 
spout at the back; four stamps work in each box, and 
crush the quartz to any desired degree of fineness required. 
A stream of water ran continually through the box, and 
carried the finer particles of stone out through sieves in 
front of each box. The powdered quartz, with the water, 
falls into "riffles" (boxes fitted with grooves), in which 
about twenty pounds of quicksilver was placed, to which 
the gold was supposed to adhere, leaving the mud and 
water to run off as waste. The stamps, each of which 
weighed five hundred pounds, were raised by means of iron 
horns affixed to the main shaft or drum, and have a fall 
of about eighteen inches upon the rock. The ends of the 
stamps, working upon the rock, are made of cast iron, and 
as there can be no friction by the gravel sloshing upon the 
woodwork, they will last for years without repairs. 
* * * The mill crushes fifteen tons of rock in twenty- 
four hours, and, what is better, saves all the gold. 

" The mill is but a short distance from the vein, which is 
of exceeding richness, and, as it is but five or six feet below 
the surface, is easy of access. The top soil is retnoved by 
ground sluicing, and two carts keep the mill in operation 
day and night. The whole force employed in and about 
the mill is but six men, and the total expense of working 
it is but $250 per week. The mill cost $4,000. The rock 
pays from fifty cents to two dollars per jDOund." 

There are many points in the above sketch (taken from 
the Columbia Gazette, of October 28, 1854) which will be 
found worthy^of reflection. The existence of a vein pay- 
ing from fifty cents to two dollars per pound, in sufficient 
mass to keep an eight-stamp mill going, is truly a wonder, 
in the light of modern experience in mines in Tuolumne. 



488 HISTORY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 

The first and earliest stamps were made with wooden 
stems, four sided, and not capable of revolving. Usually 
these stems were from five to eight inches square. Later, 
wrought iron stems came into use, which, when the useful 
effect of rotation was discovered, were made round. At 
present the practice is to have these stems from thirteen to 
fifteen feet long, with a diameter of two and a half to 
three and three-eighths inches. Every part of the stamp 
battery has been modified and its e£&ciency increased, 
while the main principles of its action remain the same. 
The mortar, the shoes and dies, the stem, tappet, head or 
boss, cam and cam shaft, have been subjected to successive 
improvements, until the art of quartz crushing has been 
adapted to rock which pays, not one or two dollars per 
pound, but two or three or four dollars per ton! This 
great and useful result has been brought about, in part, by 
the improvements on mills and processes, and in part by 
the reduced prices of labor. 



LIST OF QUARTZ MILLS IN TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 

STAMPS. STAMPS. 

Confidence 40 Big Basin 10 

App 25 Hunter 10 

Heslep 15 Ferguson 20 

Silver 10 Spring Gulch 10 

Quartz Mountain 20 New Albany 10 

Eawhide Ranch 20 Golden Rule 20 

Harris 10 Soulsby 15 

Alabama 40 Telegraph 20 

Golden Gate 10 Daegener 10 

Big Creek 10 Louisiana 8 

Mount Jefferson 10 Grizzly 20 

Nonpareil 10 Consuelo 20 



MILLS AND MANUFACTURES. 489 

STAMPS. STAMPS. 

Riverside 20 Starr King 5 

Eureka 10 Buchanan 8 

Raymond 10 Patterson 20 

Excelsior 10 Keltz 20 

Kelsey 10 Atlas 10 

Evans 5 Hazel Dell 5 

Chandler & Beal 4 Bear Creek 5 

Knox ife Boyle 10 Santa Maria 10 

Van Tromp 5 Seeber 3 

Tuolumne Reduc. Co. . . 5 

Several of these are in such a state of dilapidation that 
they do not appear on the Assessor's tax list. Thirty-seven 
are regarded as being in order for future work. It is prob- 
able that 700 stamps have, at one time and another, been 
operated in Tuolumne County. 



Reduction Processes. 

Within the limits of the county there exist no ores save 
the commonly found sulphurets, which require the agency 
of heat to free the contained gold. Of silver, we have no 
ores that contain more than a trace; so the whole question 
of rebellious or refractory ores settles upon the before men- 
tioned iron pyrites, commonly known as "sulphurets." 

The chemical composition of these pyrites is variable. 
There may be plain sulphide of iron, of a specific gravity 
of 4.6, light colored and comparatively hard; or it may be 
a complex substance containing copper, arsenic, or anti- 
mony, besides the iron and suljDhur. Perhaps the com- 
monest type is that which contains iron and sulj)hur, and 
with them, coj^per amounting to from five to thirty per 
cent, of the whole. This is copper pyrites. It is of a 



490 HISTORY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 

darker color, of greater specific gravity, and softer than 
the sulphide of iron. Arsenical sulphurets, common in the 
claims about Arastraville, is like the copper pyrites chemi- 
cally, with the addition of arsenic. No two mines, it may 
be said, produce sulphurets of exactly the same character. 

The various types of sulphurets are alike in this respect: 
That they all contain gold; and that they require to be 
roasted to set free this gold, and enable it to be acted upon 
by the quicksilver or the chlorine gas in the saving pro- 
cesses. Roasting is indispensable: thorough roasting is 
equally so. And it may safely be said, that any process 
that pretends to extract gold from sulphurets without first 
roasting is a swindle, or else it is the invention of some one 
•who is profoundly ignorant of the subject. 

Once thoroughly roasted, these suJphurets can be treated 
by the simple processes of amalgamation in pans with 
quicksilver, or they may be subjected to treatment with 
chlorine gas. The latter process has been introduced into 
this county, and in a certain sense may be said to be suc- 
cessful. At the Golden Gate Works, near Sonora, it is 
conducted in a manner of which the outlines are these: 
Preliminary roasting in a four-hearth reverberatory furnace 
is carried to a very high pitch. Twenty-four hours' exposure 
to an increasing heat, with influx of atmospheric air, serves 
to drive off the svilphur as sulphurous acid. Withdrawn 
from the furnace, and cooled upon a brick floor, the ore, 
now changed by the substitution of oxygen for sulphur, 
from sulphide to oxide, is sprinkled with water, sifted, and 
placed in tanks of a capacity of a ton and a half. 

Chlorine gas, manufactured by acting upon a mixture of 
common salt and black oxide of manganese, with oil of 
vitriol (sulphuric acid), is conducted through lead pipes 
into the bottom of each tank, and, dispersing itself into all 
parts of the contained ore, comes in contact with the minute 



REDUCTION PROCESSES. 491 

particles of gold therein, and combines chemically with 
them, producing just as many atoms or particles of chloride 
of gold. Now, this chloride of gold dissolves in water; 
and by taking advantage of this fact, the valuable substance 
is leached out, just as potash is leached oiit of ashes, in the 
form of lye. 

Collecting the lye, as we may term it, in large tanks, the 
next step in the process is to extract the gold, now totally 
invisible. To effect this, some green copperas (sulphate of 
iron) is dissolved in water and poured into the tanks, when 
instantly the chlorine gas which was in alliance with the 
gold forsakes it, and attaches itself to a portion of the iron 
in the copperas. This leaves the gold particles by them- 
selves, in the shape of a fine brown powder, which, as they 
can not dissolve in water, sink slowly to the bottom, form- 
ing there a sort of mud. 

The last step is the gathering up of the mud and melting 
it, when a mass of pure yellow gold is produced. 

From an economic standpoint, the chlorination process 
is a superior one. Compared with amalgamation, we may 
say, that for very rich sulphurets, or for those sulphuretted 
ores which contain neither talc, nor lime nor magnesia as 
carbonates, the chlorination method is superior. But for 
pyrites carrying little gold, or for those gangues which 
when calcined produce caustic lime or magnesia (or baryta), 
which have a faculty of taking uj) the chlorine, before it 
can reach the gold, then amalgamation should be resorted 
to. 

The reverberating furnace seems to possess the greatest 
advantages for roasting preparatory to chlorinating. A 
thorough roast is indispensable for the success of that pro- 
cess, it happening that some of the substances formed at 
the lower temperatures act injuriously on its application, 
hence must be driven ofi" by long continued heat. 



492 HISTOBY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 

The number of processes for the extraction of gold from 
pyrites, that have been tried or proposed in this county is 
enormous. There is no limit to the ingenuity that has been 
laid out to effect this end. Early in the history of the 
county a man proj)Osed to convert the quartz into a liquid, 
when, as he said, the gold would settle to the bottom, and 
could then be shoveled out. We find the newspapers of 
that day applauding the invention, and prognosticating 
the time when the process would come into general use. 
It is almost unnecessary to say to a community so well read 
as this that the inventor had hit upon the old chemical 
discovery that quartz (silica) is soluble in hydrofluoric acid. 

There was, a short year or two previous, a parallel inven- 
tion which, although not germane to this subject, may 
possess interest enough to deserve mention here. . It is the 
goldometer of Fletcher. Mr. Fletcher, described as a gen- 
tleman of education and refinement, was the first of the 
numerous horde of divining-rod men — a tribe who were 
born too late by many centuries, to profitably pursue their 
seductive ways of entrapping the gold from the pockets of 
worthier men. Still there are men who believe in such 
things, as there are men who believe in the sea serpent and 
in perpetual motion. 

Fletcher's apparatus, we are told by the directory of 
Heckendorn & Gist, consisted of a rod of steel, cane, or 
other elastic material, having a length of three feet, and 
provided with a ball at one end. What this ball contained 
no one was permitted to know. Fletcher said the apjDara- 
tus would not act in other hands but his own, because of 
his peculiar electrical condition! Holding the rod in his 
hand he walked over the ground, and if gold existed in the 
vicinity the rod would bend toward it. He explained it 
thus: "The motive power was an animal magnetic influ- 
ence acting through a metallic agency, the action of the 



REDUCTION PROCESSES. 493 

instrument depending upon his peculiarity of temperament, 
and therefore it would not work in other hands." Not very- 
intelligible this, but nevertheless it duped many, among 
them a Dr. Sprague, who wrote intelligently upon its vir- 
tues and effects. 

Returning to the subject of sulphurets, it is noticeable 
that the failures in jworking sulphuret mines have been 
almost universal. This is rather to be attributed to the 
limited supply of rich ores rather than to errors of man- 
agement, though the latter cause can be saddled with a 
great many failures. 

In very few cases have science and practical judgment 
combined to lead the way to success, so room jet remains 
for capital, aided by experience, to do an immense deal 
toward developing the yet remaining resources. A great 
fault thus far has been the character of some of those men 
who have corae from abroad to introduce processes. Per- 
haj)8 the leading characteristic of process vendors has 
been dishonesty rather than ingenuity; a disposition to 
trick workmen and tradesmen rather than to honestly carry 
out their pretended objects. 

Want of space forbids mention of many of these pro- 
jects, but cases in point may be cited. Mr. Eames, of San 
Francisco, engaged in the business of extracting gold from 
sulphurets, by a process of his own invention, which he, 
no doubt, believed efficient. In proof that he was sincere 
or partly so, it may be remembered that he expended tens 
of thousands of dollars, bankrupting himself and certain 
credulous friends. This pseudo-scientific man, having 
erected costly works at Saucelito, and supplemented them 
by the purchase of three mines near Tattletown, and the 
erection of a mill, commenced mining where, and in what 
manner, his " knowledge of geology told him to." The 
consequence was that he failed at once, and suspended op- 



494 HISTOBY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 

erations, leaving everything to his creditors, who at last 
accounts had realized some few cents on the dollar. 



Flouring Mills. 

The earliest flour or grist mill, of which mention can be 
found at this day, was fitted up in February, 1854, by W. 
G. Heslep. It stood on Wood's Creek, ten miles below 
Sonora, and was merged into the mill of Bell & Heslep, 
now owned by the former partner. 

Before this, the Talbot Mill Company had incorporated 
(October, 1853), with the objects of " manufacturing flour 
and meal and grinding barley, of sawing lumber, and of 
farming." The corporation was to exist for twenty-five 
years. Its capital stock was $40,000, and the Trustees of 
the enterprise were David Talbot, Major Alva Farnsworth 
and B. W. Horr. Their mill was built upon the Tuol- 
umne River, near Horr's ranch. For awhile the enterprise 
was successful, but its promising business was cut short 
by a freshet in 1855, which swept away the mill, with the 
dam, the buildings, flour, grain, etc. , the total loss being 
about $30,000. The work was never resumed. 

Since then the flouring mills have kept even pace with 
the progress of the county. In 1876 there were six such 
mills, but that number has now decreased to four. 

The building of Messrs. Hampton, Divoll & Smith's flour 
and planing mill, in 1872, marked quite an epoch in the 
business, but that structure has been since thrown in the 
background by the more pretentious Star Mills, also in 
Sonora. 

The former structnre, still occuj)ied for its original jDur- 
pose, is 50x00 feet, three stories high in front, but so situ- 
ated upon a hillside as to be but one story in the rear. 
There were three pairs of burrs, arranged to be driven by 



AGRICULTURAL RESOURCES. 495 

a 60-liorse power steam engine in time of drought, but by 
a 30-foot overshot water-wheel at other seasons. The mill 
was capable of grinding from 100 to 150 barrels of flour 
daily. Connected therewith was a planing mill. 

This mill was and still is known as the Sonora City 
Flouring and Planing Mill, and is yet in existence and 
constantly doing good work. 



AGRICULTURAL BESOURCES OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 



The County of Tuolumne (which derives its name from 
an Indian word signifying " stone wigwams ") lies upon the 
western slope of the Sierra, reaching from 'its summits 
to the valley land of the San Joaquin. It closely re- 
sembles, in its general features, the Counties of Mariposa 
and Calaveras, which adjoin it upon the south and north, 
respectively. These features may be summed up as follows: 
The general slope of drainage is toward the west. The 
country is very uneven, the knolls of the lowermost portion 
verging into the majestic mountains of the higher, or east- 
ern part. All classes of scenery are comprised therein, 
from the monotonous rolling hills, bordering the San 
Joaquin Valley, through the beautiful rural landscapes of 
the middle region, to the grand and awful Alpine scenery 
of the Upper Sierra. 

Throughout this whole extent as great a diversity exists 
in the soil and drainage as in the scenery. Coraparatively 
little of the large area is level land, the hills, mountains 
and narrow valleys between making up the most of the 
surface. 

Agriculturally considered, Tuolumne County does not 
by any means take a high rank. For a long time known 



496 HISTORY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 

as a Euining region, it is only at a comparatively recent 
date that tlie adaptability of lier soil to special agricultural 
products has become known. Limited in the extent of her 
ai-able land as she is, the culture of general crops, as the 
raising of wheat, etc., in competition with the valley lands, 
is imiDOssible, for obvious reasons. Leaving aside a discus- 
sion of why this is so, an examination of her advantages 
in the way of special crops is in order. 

The soil is composed of the fine particles washed down 
from the more elevated regions, decomposing aud disin- 
tegrating in its passage. It is mostly of granitic origin, 
and so of reasonable fertility. The tracts of arable land 
are confined to the borders of water-courses, usually nar- 
row and hard of access. This grav-elly soil, containing 
all of the chemical elements necessary to plant growth, is 
easily worked, and is found to be peculiarly adapted to 
the useful jDroducts, more, perhaps, than in any other part 
of the State. The list of productions is a long one in- 
deed, embracing most of the useful plants and trees of the 
Temperate Zone, together with a considerable number of 
tropical and sub-tropical productions. The cereals, in 
consequence of the limited area of the farms, as above ob- 
served, do not attain great prominence. Not enough of 
wheat or barley are raised to supply the local demand, but 
the "jDlains" are depended on for the difference. Hay, 
from the sowing of wheat or barley, is raised in large 
quantities, and usually commands a round price, varying 
at Sonora from $15 to $25, averaging, perhaps, $20 per 
ton. Potatoes have been a I'ather successful crop, if well 
irrigated, and corn, too, may be raised. In fact, it would 
be difiicult to mention an agricultural product of any in- 
dustrial value which could not be successfully raised here. 
The land and climate seem adapted to the raising of 
tolerable yields of nearly every known food crop. It is. 



AGRICULTURAL RESOURCES. 497 

however, in the culture of fruit that the foothill region 
most excels. The products of the orchard here attain a 
flavor unequaled by the insipid growths of the lower 
country. 

The small fruits and berries are reared in profusion. Too 
much can not be said in favor of the strawberry and the rasp- 
berry, which are susceptible of high cultivation, and attam 
a remarkably perfect flavor, taking a high rank as important 
adjuncts of the dining table. But the blackberry, the most 
valuable of all the berries, finds here its chosen habitat, 
where it grows to a size and luxuriousness hitherto unnoted. 
Its native heath is here, and the porous soil rewards the 
propagator of this inestimable berry a thousand-fold. 
Cheri'ies we have, but the fruit degenerates, becoming un- 
dersized, puckery, and comparatively unwholesome. The 
characteristics of different fruits furnish subjects for j^ro- 
longed discussion; but at present it may be well merely to 
outline the salient points connected with the practice of 
horticulture in Tuolumne, and dismiss the subject. The 
apple claims attention as the most important fruit grown, 
and deservedly so, as it is the surest of all fruit crops, and 
marvelous when we come to regard the thriftiness of the 
trees and their regular and prolific bearing. Somewhat 
more than the demand would warrant is raised of this de- 
licious fruit. Equally admirable for flavor, beauty and 
size, are the pears grown in this section. Peaches, too, that 
are raised under the conditions here surrounding, take rank 
with the apple and pear as being most perfectly adaj)ted 
to the climate and soil. Considering the perfect adapta- 
bility to the cultivation of these three most important 
fruits — the apple, the pear, and the peach — it is not too 
much to say that the raising of these alone, in such quantity 
as can and will be done, would suffice to make this a 
favored and prosperous region. 



498 HISTORY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTT. 

The grape shows quite a high degree of adaptability to 
the soil. Excellent varieties for "wine and for table use have 
been raised, and it would seem that viniculture should have 
taken a permanent place as one of the very foremost indus- 
tries. Sucb it once seemed to do. The time was, when it 
was deemed that grape growing was to take the place of 
mining; and that these hills, robbed of their underground 
wealth, should continue to yield, through the vines upon 
their flanks, a yet richer harvest. Many vineyards were 
planted, but the hopes of their owners were not realized. 
From some real or fancied reason, wine and raisin making 
has not been found to pay as richly as was anticipated, and 
those men who entered largely into grape growing, saw, in 
the course of a few years, that they had not found therein 
a certain road to wealth. These vineyards, planted some 
dozen years since, are scattered through the middle foothill 
region, on the sides of the hills and in the valleys, but have 
mostly been sutfered to go to decay, through lack of care 
and attention. Magnificent grape fields, capable of pro- 
ducing each year from three to five tons per acre, have 
been so allowed to run to waste, and the grass and weeds 
have choked the vines until desolation rales the scene. 
Tourists and others often ask why this is so; why is a prom- 
ising source of wealth neglected thus ? The reasons seem 
to be that, first, the ai't of wine-making has not been studied 
sufficiently, the production of poor, sour, red wines consti- 
tuting the greater part of the vintage, they being the handi- 
work of certain Italians and Portuguese, whose taste in 
such matters is as coarse as can be imagined, and who con- 
trol the greater part of the vines and wines of this section. 
Next, we have the exorbitant prices of freight — prices that 
amount to, at the least calculation, six cents per gallon 
for transporting to San Francisco, exclusive of the cost of 
casks. 



'agricultural resources. 499 

It must be admitted that the grape croj) of the foothills 
has not yet been able lo compete with that of the most 
favored districts of the wine counties, par excellence, in the 
yield per acre, the comparative status of the two sections 
being that four tons per acre in Napa constitute an average 
crop, while three tons in Tuolumne are regarded as an 
average. It would not be proper to assume that this dif- 
ference is owing to deficiencies in the soil or climate of our 
section, although it is possible that the discrepancy is in 
part owing to those reasons. It is more likely, however, 
to arise from the following causes: It is well known that 
grape raising and wine making have received an extraordi- 
nary amount of attention in Napa, Sonoma, Los Angeles 
and other counties, fortunes having been spent in the in- 
troduction of new and better species of vines, and well 
proved methods of manufacture. Books have been written 
upon these subjects, and viniculture has risen to the dig- 
nity of a much practiced and grandly important art, upon 
which the prosperity of very important sections of the 
State depend. Success has crowned these strenuous efforts, 
which have at length brought viniculture to its present 
high standing as one of the very first interests of the State. 
Intense study of the subject has resulted in the production 
of wine of first-rate quality, champagnes, sherries and 
IDorts being imitated to a nicety that makes it nearly impos- 
sible to tell the false from the genuine. In the foothills, 
on the contrary, very little intelligence has been directed 
to the subject, and only enough good wine has been pro- 
duced to prove beyond a doubt the fitness of this region 
for such pursuits. A few gentlemen among us have from 
time to time devoted themselves to experimenting in this 
branch with splendid results, and it is only from their 
labors that we are able to speak emj)hatically upon the sub- 
ject. 



500 HISTOBY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 

Hence, we can say that it is moi'e than likely that the 
same amount of care and experience that has been given to 
the wine culture in the lower counties would, if bestowed 
upon our vineyards, result in producing crops as large and 
as certain as any land can boast of ; and, in addition, we 
might claim, what is known as a fact, that our grapes are, 
considering the inferior varieties, superior in flavor to any 
others grown in California. 

It is useless to enlarge upon this theme, though much 
might profitably be written upon it. The want of cheap 
transportation prevents wine making, as it does every other 
bi'auch of manufacture or trade, from assuming the im- 
mense proportions that Nature and the surroundings would 
permit. No intelligent person who has traveled in Tuol- 
umne can have failed to remark the vast extent of hill-side 
and valley which is adapted to this branch of horticulture. 
Probably one -half of all the land of the entire county is 
capable of raising large average crops of grapes. The 
conditions are so favorable that Ave may safely record wine 
making as one of the pursuits which, in the future, will be 
of the most importance in the county, and very likely the 
foremost of all. 

A variety of the minor or incidental fruit products claim 
attention next. The making of raisins has always been 
regarded as profitable, although not much has been done 
in that direction. These always command a comparatively 
high price, but native raisins seem never to be able to com- 
pete successfully with the foreign varieties. At present 
that branch of industry can only be regarded as of possible 
great future importance. 

Similar language may be used in regard to fig growing — 
the more common varieties of that fruit doing remarkably 
well in all the inhabited sections of the county — but the 
slight estimation in which the crop is held proves its pre- 
sent unprofitableness. 



AGRICULTURAL RESOURCES. 501 

In various parts of the county exist apparatus for the 
manufacture of cider from apples. The Messrs. Macom- 
ber, of Sonora, have distinguished themselves in this and 
its related branches, building up an extensive and profitable 
business. From a small beginning they have achieved a 
great success, their brands of champagne cider, cider vine- 
gar and pickles being of extensive sale and widespread 
celebrity. A demand for their products comes from dis- 
tant places, as well as from the nearer towns and cities of 
California. It may be that these busy gentlemen are the 
pioneers of a large number who will engage in these and 
similar pursuits in the near future, to realize fortunes for 
themselves and great benefits for the county. 

As before remarked, it would seem that nearly every soil 
production had been known to flourish in the fruitful land 
of Tuolumne. In times past a vast variety of such products 
(those of the Torrid and Temperate Zones, with their various 
subdivisions) have been tested; and such widely separated 
plants as rye and coffee, representing the extremes of the 
North Temperate and the Torrid Zones, have succeeded in 
considerable degree. This is a remarkable fact, and one 
that is unprecedented in the annals of agriculture. After 
such evidence as this, we may well believe that the county 
is highly favored by nature; and we may also be well as- 
sured that the future will see the farmers of this section in 
a prosperous condition, and their prosperity based upon a 
far surer foundation than if their sole occupation was in 
grain or cattle raising. Experience has shown that a sys- 
tem of mixed farming is the most advantageous for a people 
and a State. Communities which are self-supporting, pro- 
ducing their own provisions, and also their own clothing, 
are not only more permanently prosperous, but always 
exercise a greater moral influence than those who devote 
themselves to a single branch of husbandry, as wheat-rais- 



502 HISTORY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 

ing, or some similar occupation. Here in Tuolumne the 
tendency must always be to the raising of a variety of pro- 
ducts on each farm — and of a very large number within the 
borders of the county. It is to be expected that in addition 
to the present every-day occupations of raising pork, beef, 
mutton, a little wheat, a great deal of hay and barley, un- 
limited amounts of fruit, and potatoes, with bees-honey, 
garden products, etc., each farmer shortly will gather a 
considerable quantity of grapes, to sell to the neighboring* 
winery, of which Tuolumne will doubtless contain many — 
"when we have a railroad" — and also derive from his flock 
of sheep a quantity of wool enough at least to clothe him- 
self and his family, when made into cloth at the woolen 
factory, which the section will doubtless possess. 

Nature must have intended that this should be a region 
of HOMES. She has bestowed on it a climate which is un- 
equaled. No less an authority than Bayard Taylor, the 
great traveler, pronounced the climate superior to that of 
Italv. Healthful to a degree, no epidemic or endemic dis- 
eases of a severe type exist; and there is no reason why a 
long life should not be the lot of its inhabitants. The soil 
(some of it capable of renewal by means of the ditches car- 
rying mud) is of sufficient fertility, and is very easily worked. 
Good water abounds, "hardness" in some locations being 
an objection. This mention of the water supply leads to 
the interesting topic of irrigation, which onables the domain 
of agriculture to be so greatly extended. Only those who 
have traveled over the mining country can have an adequate 
idea of the extent and number of the ditches which have 
been dug to carry water to the placers. They ramify in all 
directions. Every eidehill has one, and frequently a dozen. 
Hardly any spot exists in the middle region of the county 
which cannot be reached by water from these ditches. 
After serving their purpose in assisting the miners to extract 



AGRICULTURAL RESOURCES. 503 

the gold particles, they now stand ready and mostly unin- 
jured to carry their streams to the aid of the farmer, whose 
work needs their aid as much as his predecessor's. 

Here, then, is a water supply worth millions, ready at 
hand to aid the deserving agriculturist. As if nature, in 
conferring on the foothill region its glorious climate, valu- 
able soil, and other unequaled advantages, had not done 
as much as she desired for the favored people who were to 
inhabit these hills and valleys, she causes man himself to 
extenuate her work, by digging for himself (but uncon- 
sciously for a more lasting object) those endless miles of 
ditches and canals. 

"With all these advantages, it would be a wonder indeed 
if the future population were not a numerous, happy, con- 
tented and useful people, such as farmers usually are. 
These farmers will not farm as is done in many sections of 
this State; they will raise no immense crojDS in one season, 
to be bankrupted by drouth in the next. There will be no 
astonishing yields, and no startling pecuniary returns. 
There will be only moderate, painstaking farming, as it is 
conducted ^in the older- settled States. It is impossible to 
believe other than that, after the lapse of a few scores of 
years, these small valleys and the pleasant uplands will be 
dotted thickly with the tasteful houses (not cabins) of actual 
settlers, who will live for comfort and not for speculation. 
There is room for every one who covets a home. Whoever 
can live on a small farm of tolerably fertile land, in a good 
neighborhood, and in the enjoyment of the best climate in 
the world, should settle in these foothills. Already there 
is an active and enterprising population, with whom farm- 
ing and kindred pursuits find favor, living useful and agree- 
able lives, believing in "a little farm well tilled," and who 
constitute the most permanently valuable class in existence. 
Many of these present farmers are former miners, who look 



504 HISTORY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 

upon the certain though slow gains of the farmer as prefer- 
able to the more hazardous rewards of their former calling. 
Now, grown older, they recognize the value of a home and 
home comforts, and have sat down content with the yearly 
bounty that Nature provides. 

This class generally take great pride in their new pursuit, 
and fully realize the worth of good, careful farming. Their 
homes are often romantically situated, embowered with 
vines and shaded by broad-spreading oaks and the culti- 
vated acacias and eucalypti, and ornamented by gardens, 
with their beautiful contents, of all the open-air flowers 
common to this latitude. 

Having now pointed out some few of the many advan- 
tages with which, in an agricultural way, Tuolumne is 
blessed, it is time to take leave of the subject. It is not 
easy to conclude expressions which the extent of the theme 
force upon one's mind. Volumes of matter concerning the 
advantages of these foothills might be written, but the 
subject belongs in common to the whole range of territory 
on this slope of the Sierra. Finally, these reflections will 
recur to the intelligent thinker: 

There are in this county thousands of acres of hillsides 
susceptible of irrigation, and capable of raising unlimited 
quantities of grapes, yearly, for the production of whole- 
some wine and raisins. 

We could, on demand, pour forth tons of figs, apples, 
plums, apricots, melons and berries, finer flavored than 
Eastern epicure ever dreamed of, for the supply of the 
home and foreign markets. 

The silkworm would flourish here, tea can be cultivated, 
and cotton for our clothing may be grown. 

In the upper mountain ranges exist thousands of acres 
of succulent grasses for the sustenance of myriads of cattle 



AGRICULTUBAL RESOUECES. 505 

and sheep; on the verge of the snowbanks there can be 
made the finest butter. 

There are great tracts of timber. 

There is water power sufficient to run a thousand grist, 
quartz and saw-mills. 

Our soils are renewable. Every stroke of the miner's 
pick loosens and sets moving a mass of fine slum, contain- 
ing all the elements of fertility. If we cause this to settle 
upon our wastes of rocks and cobbles we produce an addi- 
tional area of good land — a garden spot, suited for the 
production of the choicest edibles. 

We have many mines of gold. There are rich pockets 
to be exposed each year following, and there are milling^ 
veins which are richly worth working. 

There are other sources of wealth too numerous for even 
hasty mention in this article, which will be fittingly closed 
by the reproduction of data derived from the Assessor's 
Reports, which will be sufficient to exhibit the present 
standing of the county in comparison with the year 1876 1 



506 HISTORY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 



EXTRACTS FROM ASSESSMENT LIST OF 1882. 



Total value of real estate $1,052,095 

Personal property 1,034,075 

Total valuation $2,086,170 



Land inclosed, acres 135,707 

Land cultivated, acres 34,450 

Wheat, acres 6,200 

Wheat, bushels 124,000 

Barley, acres 2,800 

Barley, bushels 57,500 

Oats, acres 550 

Oats, bushels 16,500 

Kye, acres 25 

Rye, bushels 625 

Corn, acres 85 

Corn, bushels 1,700 

Peas, acres 15 

Peas, bushels 650 

Beans, acres 25 

Beans, bushels 500 

Potatoes, acres 200 

Potatoes, tons 600 

Onions, acres 50 

Onions, bushels 2,750 

Hay, acres 25,000 

Hay, tons 25,000 

Butter, pounds 23,000 

Cheese, pounds 1,500 

Wool, pounds 28,890 



AORICULTURAL BE80URCE8. 507 

Wine, gallons 90,400 

Brandy, gallons 2,500 

Beer, porter, etc., gallons 23,000 



Lemon trees 100 

Orange trees 200 

Olive trees 25 

Apple trees 45,000 

Pear trees 21,000 

Fig trees 1,540 

Plum trees 30,500 

Peach trees 22,500 

Quince trees 250 

Grape vines, acres 775 

Value of fruit crop, dollars 75,000 



Grist mills (1 by steam, 3 by water power) 4 

Barrels of flour made in 1880 14,500 

Saw mills (5 by steam, 1 by water power) 6 

Lumber sawed in 1880, feet 5,400,000 

Shingles made 235,000 

Quartz mills 34 

Tons of quartz crushed 85,000 

Ditches 17 

Mining ditches (having an aggregate length of 
152 miles, and using 10,240 inches of water 

daily) 7 

Irrigating ditches (30 miles in length, irrigating 

2,550 acres of land) 

Swarms of bees 440 

Cows 2,660 

Other cattle 2,800 

Goats 2,605 



508 HISTORY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 

Hogs 2,290 

Horses 2,075 

Mules 113 

Jacks and jennies 44 

Sheep 13,932 

Lambs 3,456 

Statistics for 1876. 

Real estate, dollars 823,000 

Personal property, dollars 631,000 

Land inclosed, acres 164,600 

Land cultivated, acres 8,142 

Grist mills 6 

Quartz mills 34 

Ditches 6 

Length of ditches, miles 150 

Horses 3,285 

Mules 187 

Horned cattle 8,650 

Sheep and lambs 20,800 

Goats 8,600 

Hogs 4,919 

Wheat, bushels 30,900 

Barley, bushels 18,534 

Hay, tons 3,074 

Oats, bushels 300 

Potatoes, tons 220 

Lumber, feet 6,100,000 

Product of mines, dollars 713,150 

Apricot trees 450 

Apple trees 30,780 

Peach trees 15,000 



mSTORT OF TUOLUMNE COmiTTY. 509 

Pear trees 4,500 

Plum trees 4,900 

Cherry trees 880 

Fig trees 765 

Quince trees 450 

Grape vines 500,000 

Wine, gallons 90,000 



-» * ^ '^ 'Siimm^s 



APPENDIX. 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES PREPARED TOO LATE FOR 
INSERTION IN THEIR PROPER ORDER. 



Z. H. CUNNINGHAM 

Was born in Pittston, Kennebec County, Maine, on Sep- 
tember 10, 1832. At the age of twenty-four he left New 
England for California, selecting Springfield, Tuolumne 
County, as his residence. Here he remained, working at 
his trade of blcksmithing, until 1864, when he decided to 
try the State of Nevada. One Summer, however, in Esme- 
ralda County satisfied him, and the same year saw him set- 
tled in San Francisco, where he has since remained. Mr, 
Cunningham married Miss Martha Winslow, of Lewistoni 
Maine, and has two children. His son, William L., is as- 
sociated with him in his extensive smithy, on Mission 
street, San Francisco. 



E. G. LYONS 

Was born in Paris, France, July 29, 1834, and came to 
California in 1852. Landing at San Francisco, he went to 
Tuolumne County, associating himself with his father* 
Hugues Lyons, in general merchandising. In 1864 re 

moved to San Francisco, selecting the wine trade for his 
vocation, and is identified as a prominent merchant in that 
city. 



HISTORY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 



H. PALMEE 



Was born in England December 9, 1825, coming to America 
when two years of age. His early education was received at 
New York, in which city he remained until reaching his 
twenty-fourth year. In 1849 Mr. Palmer, catching the 
" gold fever," took passage on board the ship " George 
Washington," and arrived in San Francisco August 28th 
of the same year. Proceeding to Tuolumne County, he 
located some claims on Wood's Creek, near Campo Seco; 
in fact, was one of the first settlers in that neighborhood. 

Leaving Campo Seco in 1853, he went to Algerine, from 
which place he removed two years later to Knight's Feiry* 
engaging at the latter place in merchandising, which occu- 
pation he followed until 1870. 

After a trip to the Eastern States, Mr. Palmer returned 
to California, and has since been connected with the wine 
interests of San Francisco and Oakland. 



SOL MILLER. 

Mr. Miller, whose portrait appears herein, and who is 
extensively known throughout the greater part of the Pacific 
States as a most energetic and successful commercial trav- 
eler, was born in Berks County, Pennsylvania, in August, 
1829. Leaving his ancestral acres in early life, when the 
" gold fever" took so many westward, he too sought these 
shores, coming to Panama, thence traveling down the South 
American coast to Peru, from whence^ he came to San 
Francisco in the early Spring of 1849. Going immediately 
to the mines, he worked for a time at Jacksonville, on the 
Tuolumne River. A short time spent there, he returned to 



APPENDIX. 



San Francisco, tbeu proceeded, in the Fall of the same 
year, to An^^els' Camp, in Calaveras County, subsequently 
going to Vallecito, where he had the good fortune to "strike 
it rich," and again retarned to San Francisco, and engaged 
^n business with P. K. Aurand, their house being on Wash- 
ington street, San Francisco ; but misfortune overtook 
them, and they were burned out on May 6, 1850. 

After this calamity, the two partners proceeded to Tuol- 
umne County, where they settled, establishing themselves 
in mercantile business at a place to which they gave the 
name of Montezuma House, the name of which has remained 
attached to the important mining camp which subsequently 
grew up near by. 

On Saturday, June 29, 1850, the following occurrence 
took place, which has marked an epoch in Mr. Miller's life: 
On the evening of the above date three Mexicans, cus- 
tomers, came in and purchased goods, for which they ten- 
dered payment. While in the act of receiving the money, 
Mr. Miller was stabbed by a weapon which one of them 
drew from beneath hisserajye. Three wounds were inflicted 
upon him, one, the principal, being through his body, from 
side to side, penetrating both lungs; another in the back 
of the neck, and the third in the arm. The victim fell and 
became insensible, so remaining until, awaking in the dark, 
ness, he found bis partner near him, who said, " Sol, I am 
stabbed; are you alive?" And they lay until midnight, 
spending their time in giving each other explicit directions 
as to the disposal of their effects in case that one recovered. 
Dying then, this brave partner's last words were a query 
as to the other's sufferings. On the following morning help 
arrived, and the survivor was taken to the hospitable house 
of Judge Robert McGarvey, at Oak Springs, where he re- 
mained until his recovery, his kind host assuming charge 
of the property of the two men, which was delivered uuin- 



b HISTORY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 

jured to Mr. Miller. The outrage was committed for pur- 
poses of robbery, but the desperadoes realized but three 
hundred dollars for their infamous crime, because their 
victims had taken the precaution to hide the remainder of 
their money, amounting to seven thousand dollars, in a 
bread barrel, where it was undiscovered by the Mexicans, 
and was delivered over to the survivor. 

After an inquest, held by H. P. Barber, Esq., the re- 
mains of the partner were buried where he fell, and for 
more than thirty years the spot where he rests has been 
kept green and suitably marked by head-board and fence, 
the one living testifying to the good qualities of the dead 
who perished on that fearful night. 

Since then Mr. Miller's life has been taken ujd almost 
entirely by business affairs. In 1850 he formed a partner- 
ship with " Count " Solinsky, which existed until the estab- 
lishment of Adams' Express Company, when they became 
Agents for the latter firm, at Chinese Camp, Big Oak Flat, 
Montezuma, Don Pedro's Bar and Coulterville. On the 
failure of their employers, they became Agents for the 
Pacific Express, and afterwards for Wells, Eargo & Co. 
Messrs. Miller & Solinsky remained together until 1870, 
when the former became Tax Collector for two terms, then 
Under Sherifl" during the shrievalty of James Trout. In 
1871 Mr. Miller left Tuolumne and went to Stockton, vrhere 
he conducted a branch of the business house of Messrs. 
Spruance, Stanley & Co., removing, in 1875, to San Fran- 
cisco. He has since been acting as Solicitor for the last 
named firm, and has achieved a wide celebrity in his busi- 
ness. 

The gentleman married Miss Roxie A. Searl, in January, 
1857, who died in July, 1860. By her there is a daughter, 
Miss Agnes A. Miller. In 18G3 he was again married, this 
time to Miss Hattie N. Humphries. The issue of the second 
marriage is also a daughter. Lulu, who is now twelve years 
of age. The family now reside in Oakland. 



APPENDIY. 



S. B. MINOR 



Was born in Riga, New York, June 19, 1825. At the age 
of 20 Mr. Minor went to Michigan, in which State he caught 
the " California fever," thither migrating, and arriving in 
San Francisco via the Isthmus on March 1, 1852. Pro- 
ceeding to El Dorado County, he there passed the Winter 
of 1852, settling at Mud Springs in the Spring of 1853, 
where he remained until 1855. Concluding to try his for- 
tunes in Tuolumne County, Mr. Minor went to Jamestown 
and engaged in mining in the Georgia Claims. In 1864 he 
left the mines to accept a position at San Quentin, under 
Lieutenant-Governor T. N. Machin, then Warden at the 
State Prison. However, in 1866, he moved to San Fran- 
cisco, being employed by the railway companies, and in 
1870 went into the liquor business, being at the present 
time still in that line, his place of business being No. 13, 
Third street. 



J. A. BENHAM, 

Was born on October 12, 1820, at Seneca Falls, Seneca 
County, N. Y,, and in 1852 came to California, arriving on 
April 1st, having come by way of Cape Horn. After nine 
months' residence in Sacramento he went to Tuolumne 
County, where he for some time mined between Sonora 
and Columbia, then opening the Magnolia Hotel at Colum- 
bia, which he managed until 1859. After one year's resi- 
dence in San Francisco Mr. Benham went to Virginia City, 
becoming one of the most prominent contractors and build- 
ers of that region. The White Pine excitement took him 
to Hamilton, where, however, he remained but one year, 
returning to San Francisco to take a position in the rail- 
way mail service. At the end of four years Mr. Benham 



8 HISTORY OF TDOLUMNE COUNTY. 

went to OaklaBcl, where he has since been identified as one 
of the most prominent builders, Dietz's Opera House being 
one of the many buildings erected by him. 



G. w. Mcpherson 

Was born in Merced County on October 25, 1858, but 
shortly after his birth was taken to Tuolumne County and 
lived in the neighborhood of Table Mountain until his 
ninth year. He then moved to Snellings, Merced County, 
where he received most of his education. After six years' 
residence in the latter place he went to Yosemite Valley, 
acting as guide for visitors until 1876, when he removed to 
San Francisco, engaging in mercantile pursuits, and is at 
the present time in the manufacturing business in that city 
at No. 608 Market street. Mr. McPherson is one of the 
Trustees of the Tuolumne Reunion Association. 



WILLIAM G. DINSMORE. 

This gentleman was born in Norridgewock, Somerset 
County, Maine, in November, 1821. The details of his 
eventful life are as follows: 

Going to Boston in his early years, he remained there 
for three years; he then returned for a short time to his old 
home, preparatory to starting for the new El Dorado. On 
February 5, 1852, he left New York on the steamer Prome- 
theus, coming to Nicaragua. It was Mr. Dinsmore's for- 
tune to be one ox the passengers of the ill-fated steamer 
North America, which received them on the Pacific side 
and was wrecked about one hundred miles below Acapulco. 
The survivors of the catastrophe, numbering among them 



APPENDIX. 



the gentleman whose story is now being told, arrived finally 
at Aeapulco, where, after a detention of two months, they 
took passage on the clipper ship Northern Light, and 
finally reached San Francisco after a tedious passage of 
twenty-two days. 

Traveling about the country for a while, and visiting 
Marysville and other places, Mr. Dinsmore finally accepted 
the position of steward on a Sacramento Kiver steamer, 
remaining so emploj^ed throughout the winter of 1852-3^ 
Becoming proprietor of 'the Essex House and then of the 
Garden House, be occupied himself in conducting the busi- 
ness of those hostelries until 1855, going in that year to 
the mines. In 1860, after spending the intervening years 
in mining, he engaged with Dr. Baldwin in the drug busi- 
ness at Columbia, which they followed four or five years. 
Then spending a year in a cabinet factory, in 1866 he 
established the newspaper called the Columbia Citizen, 
renting a printing press of the Messrs. Duchow. At the 
end of a year Mr. Dinsmore withdrew from the new enter- 
prise, and going to Sonora became employed in the offices 
of the various newspapers published there, and remained 
until 1867. After spending some time in Oroville, San 
Francisco and other places, he finally removed to Oakland, 
where he took charge of a drug store and remained for five 
years; then buying out the store with its stock, and con- 
ducting it until 1878, when he entered tlie employ of an 
express company, and finally, in July, 1882, he engaged 
with the Central Pacific Railroad Companj', in whose em- 
ploy he still remains. 



THOMAS J. EVANS. 

Mr. Evans, whose birth occurred in Rhode Island, and 
whose early years were spent in Massachusetts, came to 



10 HISTORY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 

California in the spring of 1858. Proceeding first to the 
northern mines, he finally came to Tuolumne in 1860, and 
settled at Yankee Hill, near Columbia, and remained there 
until 1863. In that year he removed to Sonora, and has 
claimed that place as a residence ever since. Constantly 
engaged in mining since his arrival, he has made himself 
conspicuous as a discoverer and owner of quartz mines 
several of which, under his management, having become 
valuable properties. 



DOCTOR C. E. BLAKE. 

This gentleman, whose portrait appears in this work, is 
of good English stock, the records of his ancestry dating 
back to the sixteenth century, at which time they inhabited 
Little Baddow, in Essex, England. It is recorded that 
William Bfeke, of that family, came to America in 1630, 
and, settling at Dorchester, in Massachusetts, became the 
progenitor of the numerous Blakes of New England. In 
the language of the chronicler of that day, he *' possessed 
an ample estate." In direct line between him and the sub- 
ject of this sketch stand the names of Edward, Ebenezer, 
Ebenezer the second, and Luther, who were respectively 
great-great-grandfather, great-grandfather, grandfather, 
and father of their living descendant. Of these, the grand- 
father, born in 1732, was a man of note. In early life a 
soldier, be served in the French and Indian wars preceding 
the Revolution, much of the time being under the imme- 
diate command of George Washington. He fought val- 
iantly at the engagement known as Braddock's Defeat, 
where the Father of his Country first evinced his talent for 
command. 

There is in the possession of the present Dr. Blake a 
curious relic — a powder-horn — which belonged to his war- 



APPENDIX. 11 

rior ancestor, inscribed with the name of Ebenezer Blake 
and the words "Fort Cumberland," a post of great im- 
portance in that war. Ebenezer Blake's sons, Eleazer and 
.Luther, were both men of prominence. The former, styled 
Deacon, and so regarded in the traditions of the family, 
was an active participant in the Revolutionary war, serving 
therein six years, and taking part in the siege of Boston, 
the hanging of Andre, and other occurrences which are 
now of historical interest. As before mentioned, the father 
of C, E. Blake was Luther, who was born in 1775. 

Dr. Blake was born in Massachusetts, in 1828, on No- 
vember 22d. He came to California by way of New Orleans 
and Panama, leaving the former place on the steamer Fal- 
con, in company with Dr. Gwin, Gregory Yale, and others 
who have since become well known in this State. Being 
detained for some weeks at Panama, on account of the lack 
of transportation, it was only by taking passage on a sailing 
vessel that he, with a large number of fellow-passengers, 
were enabled even then to reach San Francisco. As it was, 
the passage occupied seventy days, and was full of inci- 
dent, inconveniences and discomforts, even sufferings, 
arising from insufficient food and water. To such a state 
of desperation were the passengers driven, that a pros- 
pective mutiny was in progress during the whole voyage. 
Finally arriving in San Francisco on January 10, 1850, the 
Doctor proceeded to Sacramento and secured employment 
in painting the now historic steamer Senator, then lying at 
that city. During that year he visited the mines at Foster's 
Bar and Trinity, at the latter region a " boom " being in 
progress. In September, 1850, he arrived in Tuolumne 
County. His first labors were in digging a ditch in Sonora, 
near the business house of Page, Bacon & Co. , and he was so 
fortunate as to strike a rich lead, while engaged on the 
ditch, which was the first considerable find yet discovered. 



12 HISTORY OP TQOLIIMNE COUNTY. 

The Doctor relates that in one day, the six who were part- 
ners took out twelve pounds of gold. 

Beginning in 1851 to practice dentistry, the Doctor 
opened the first dental office in Sonora, on the ground 
where the old adobe building afterwards rose, adjoining 
the present store of O'Brien. During the half dozen years 
of his stay in Sonora, the Doctor made frequent changes of 
his place of business, as were made necessary by the fires 
which ravaged the town, burning the gentleman's office 
three or four times. Leaving Sonora in 1857, he has re- 
sided since in San Francisco, practicing his profession. 

The Doctor's family consists of his wife, who was born 
Miss Laura Hands, and is a native of New York, and their 
five children: Alfred E., born Ociober 16, 1861; Sherman 
T., born November 21, 1864; Louis S., born April 10, 1866; 
Laura May, born June 29, 1867; and Robert Johnson, born 
July 20, 1875. 



WILLIAM A. DUCHOW. 

Mr. Duchow, who may be regarded as a typical journal- 
ist of the State, after many years passed in the active life 
incident to his craft, came to reside in Sonora in 1872. The 
impelling cause of his residence in the county seat was the 
establishment of that deserving and ably directed sheet 
the Tuolumne Independent, in 1872. Previous to this his 
journalistic career had been varied. Coming from Salem, 
Massachusetts, his birthplace, some thirty years ago, he 
settled at Columbia and engaged in newspaper work, type- 
setting and editing, his first venture being upon the Co- 
lumbia Gazette. During the years in which the brothers 
Duchow (John C. and William A.) conducted the Gazette 
and Southern Mines Advertiser, and afterwards the equally 
able and well conducted Ttiolurane Courier, the flush times 



APPENDIX. 13 

of Columbia were passed, and many incidents are narrated 
by Mr. Ducbow wbicb show bis intimate knowledge and 
participation in tbe stirring affairs of tbat epocb. Leaving 
Columbia in 1859, Mr. Ducbow became foreman of tbe 
Daily Argits and Weekly Democrat, papers published in 
Stockton. Later be lived for a while in San Francisco, 
working as printer, and then taking a contract to issue a 
paper for Aleck Montgomery in Napa. In San Francisco 
he became one of the proprietors of the San Francisco 
limes, a newspaper which was run by an association of 
printers. Frank M. Pixley, the present brilliant editor of 
the Argonaut, was editor of their sheet. Later on Mr. Du- 
cbow went to Santa Cruz, interesting himself in the Senti- 
nel, of that place. Later still, the Pajaro Times, a paper 
published at Watsonville^ engrossed his care. This, the 
largest country sheet published in California, was run by 
the firm of McQuillan, Kearney and Ducbow, and did a 
thriving business, succeeding even beyond the anticipations 
of the proprietors. 

After five years spent in Alameda, Mr. Ducbow returned 
to Tuoluraue, engaging in the publication of the Indepen- 
dent with his brother, John Ducbow, previously oftentimes 
mentioned as connected with the newspapers of Columbia, 
and respecting whom it may be said that no living journal- 
ist has ever maintained a more upright and consistent 
course, struggling always to the utmost of his powers to 
uphold the purity of his newspaper and to elevate the con- 
dition of his fellow citizens. 

Mr. W. A. Ducbow married in Monterey county Miss 
Mettle Whitlock, daughter of Dr. Whitlock, now of Inyo 
County. The pair have five children — Earl M., Daisy, Wil- 
liam A., Harvey G. and Raphael. 



14 HISTORY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 

JOHN B. STETSON. 

Mr. Stetson, whose portrait is presented herein, was 
born in Kingston, Massachusetts, on the 27th of March, 
1831. He came to California in 1852, arriving in San 
Francisco in September. Somewhat later in*that year, he 
arrived at Shaw's Flat, in Tuolumne county, afterwards 
entering into business at Columbia as a dealer in hard- 
ware; his firm being known as Osgood & Stetson. Ke- 
maining in Columbia until 1860, the firm then removed to 
San Francisco and opened a store where the Occidental 
Hotel now stands, continuing in the hardware business. 
In 1877, his partner having retired, Mr. Stetson conducted 
the business alone for one year, at the end of that time 
forming a partnership with others under the designation of 
Holbrook, Merrill & Stetson. The business house of this 
great firm is now No. 225 Market street. 

Mr. Stetson is a man of family, having four children — 
Sarah F., Nellie M., Albert L. and Harry N. Mrs. Stet- 
son, formerly Miss Maria Slack, is a native of Pennsyl- 
Tania. 

The gentleman, like manjj^ of the former settlers of Tuol- 
umne County, carries in his memory a very large store of 
reminiscences of the early daj'^s. Among these recollections, 
some relating to the time of his stay at Shaw's Flat are pe- 
culiarly interesting. It is related that during the time in 
which he there resided he held the office of constable, as- 
sisting in the capture of Ned McCaulley, who murdered 
Bond, an account of which has been given. The circum- 
stances of the capture not having been mentioned, place 
may be given here. The slayer had, previous to the kill- 
ing, been engaged in an assault, for which he had been 
brought before Judge Drake at the Flat, and allowed to go 
on his promise to return later, when sentence would be 
pronounced. This somewhat loose way of transacting af- 



APPENDIX. 15 

fairs had a painful result, for it gave the desperado an op- 
portunity of seeking the quarrel which led to such a 
lamentable result. When the murder took place, Mr. 
Stetson set out to apprehend McCaulley, but was unable to 
ascertain his whereabouts, because none of the neighbors 
cared to win the enmity of his gang. At last a half-breed 
secretly gave the desired information, and, securing help, 
Mr. Stetson proceeded in the gloom of the evening, and 
apprehended the murderer, who was awaiting the arrival 
of his friends, who were expected to bring him money 
wherewith to make his escape from the vicinity. 

Mr. Stetson was at Columbia when the murderer of 
John Leary met his deserved doom at the hands of the 
mob, being hanged to the flume. The gentleman relates 
an anecdote bearing upon this affair. J. L. Hamlin, once 
Assemblyman, was a man of imposing presence, being over 
six feet in hight. This gentleman, out of his own sense 
of fitness and respect for the laws which he had helped 
to frame, stood up at the hanging, and stretching out 
his hands, cried out that he thanked God that his soul 
was free from the blood of the executed man! At this a 
little fellow stepped forth from the mob, and in a calm 
voice said to Hamlin that if he uttered another word 
they would hang him too. The ridiculous part of the 
story relates to the terrified departure of the moral law- 
maker, as he rose to a full appreciation of these words and 
retired from the scene with a velocity that made his coat- 
tails assume a horizontal position. 



CHARLES B. RUTHERFORD. 
Born in Newburyport, Massachusetts, in September, 
1835, Mr. Rutherford left there at the age of ten years 
and settled at Canandaigua, Ontario County, New York. 



16 HISTOEY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 

In the schools of that place, the young Rutherford was 
a classmate of the late Governor Haight of this State. 
In 1849 he went to San Antonio, Texas, holding there 
the position of clerk in the Quartermastei-'s Department 
of the United States Army. Going to Mexico for a time, 
he then went to California, getting to San Francisco in 
October, 1852. Although obtaining remunerative occupa- 
tion there, he nevertheless left that place in a month or 
so, going next to Sonora. He arrived there after the great 
fire, and set uj) a tent on Washington street, in which he 
did business, following his occupation of painter. His 
first work in Sonora was to paint the apparatus of the 
new hook and ladder company, and which contained one 
hundred and fifty members, many of whom achieved sub- 
sequent fame in their several walks of life. 

Mr. Rutherford, in the course of his residence in So- 
nora, erected the brick building now occupied by Dr. Sears; 
also the pretty brick structure now occupied by Mr. John 
Cowie as a dwelling-house. 

Selling out to Mr. Cady, Mr. Rutherford left Sonora in 
1861 and went to San Francisco in 1861, remaining there 
two years, then spending one year in San Luis Obispo 
County. He next went to Oakland, and has been a con- 
stant resident there since, carrying on his painting busi- 
ness at No. 1014 Broadway. He has held the office of Pub- 
lic Administrator of the county lor four years. The 
gentleman is married and has three children. 



DOCTOR D. M. BALDWIN. 

The account of the principal events of Dr. Baldwin's life 
runs as follows: Born in Orange County, Vermont, on the 
25th day of June, 1820. At a suitable age he entered 
Dartmouth College, at Hanover, New Hampshire, graduat- 



APPENDIX. 17 

ing from tliat renowned institution in due time. Adopting 
medicine as a profession, and attaining proficiency in that 
Calling, he settled himself in the county of his nativity, and 
practiced for a time. In 1858 he left his home, and, com- 
ing to California, located at Columbia in May of that year. 
The Doctor practiced his profession with good success for 
nine years, then removing to Oakland, from whence he 
wentj with his wife, in 1875, to Hay Creek in Eastern Or- 
egon, to engage in stock raising, which he has pursued 
successfully ever since. 



DANIEL SEWELL. 

The subject of this sketch was born in Staleybridge, Lan- 
cashire, England, on June 12, 1836, and came to the United 
States in October, 1847. 

His parents first settled at "Wappinger's Falls, Duchess 
Count}'', New York, he remaiuing with them until May, 
1854, when he was bound as an apprentice to Stephen 
Armstrong, a carpenter and joiner, in Poughkeepsie, with 
whom he was connected until June, 1857. 

Following this trade for two years in the State of New 
York, in 1859 Mr. Sewell determined to try his fortunes in 
California. In Sejotember of that year he sailed, and landed 
in San Francisco about the 29th of the same mouth. There 
he stopped only two days, proceeding to Tuolumne County 
and adopting Sonora as his place of residence. 

On April 27, 18(51, he became a member of the old Sonora 
Hose Company, and for fifteen years was identified as one 
of the most earnest workers in the same. Of his connec- 
tion with the Sonora Fire Department, the following facts 
have been obtained: 

Six times Mr. Sewell was elected Secretary of Hose Com- 
pany No. 1; once Treasurer of the same; twice appointed 



18 HISTORY OP TUOLUMNE COrNXy. 

Secretary of Board of Fire Delegates; three times elected 
one of the five Trustees of the City of Sonora; five tiraea 
elected First Assistant Engineer of the Sonora Fire De- 
partment; and four times Chief Engineer of the same. 

To the above flattering record is added the following 
tribute by a former officer: "Mr. Sewell is a self-made 
man, having come among us a few years ago as a stranger. 
By his sterling worth and indomitable perseverance he has 
endeared himself to his fellow-citizens. During his cctn- 
nection with the Fire Department, though the same covers 
a space of fifteen years, in danger he has never been found 
absent from his post, nor from our counsels when our in- 
terests have been at stake." 

In 1857 Mr. Sewell, in New York, joined the Independent 
Order of Odd-Fellows. Withdrawing from the Eastern 
Lodge in 1861, he became a member of Sonora Lodge No. 
10, passing through the various offices, and in the years of 
1876 and 1879 represented his Lodge in the Grand Lodge 
of California. In 1862 he associated himself with Bald 
Mountain Encampment No. 4 of the same order, from time 
to time filling the different official places in the same, and 
at the time of his departure for the Bay City held the posi- 
tion of Scribe. 

Mr, Sewell was three times appointed City Clerk by the 
Board of Trustees of the City of Sonora, resigning the of- 
fice in August, 1879, the date of his removal of business to 
San Francisco. 

While in Sonora, for four years he was a contractor and 
builder, relinquishing that occupation to succeed W. H. 
Rulofson, the well known photographer. In the latter 
branch of business he was quite successful, but in August, 
1879, concluded to remove to San Francisco, where he 
bought an interest in the New York Gallery, on Third 
street, continuing there at the present time. 



APPENDIX. 19 

Daring his residence in Tuolumne County, when the 
public welfare was concerned, few names w^re more promi- 
nent than that of Daniel Sewell. It may also be mentioned 
that he was one of the Committee to receive subscriptions 
for the opening of the road from Sonora to Grovelaud, by 
way of Wards' Ferrj', this being a direct route to Yosemite. 

In 1864 Mr. Sewell married Lucie Elvira Worden, and 
has four children: Daniel R., Lillie Eldora, Dell Elvira, 
anjd Nettie Mira, all of them born in Sonora. 



PRENTICE MULFORD. 

Mr. Mulford writes as follows: "You ask me for my 
biography. I could write you a much more interesting 
biography, were it not to be published until after I am 
dead. I should not like to face my own truthful biography. 
Very few really truthful biographies are ever written. 
What men write of themselves, or have written for them, 
is generally a veneer over the hideous truth. It is a re- 
spectable, conventional dummy, stuffed with skillful eva- 
sions, if not with downright lies, that is furnished for the 
edification of the public. It is sad to think of such biogra- 
phies which cumber our histories, our village libraries, and 
even our Sunday schools. 

Out of consideration, then, for the public weal, and out 
of deference to public opinion, I am compelled to suppress 
much that might be of absorbing interest in my truthful 
biography, and send you only these, the mutilated remains. 

" I was born in Sag Harbor, on the east end of Long 
Island, State of New York, April 5th, a. d. 1834. I was 
not born exactly as I would like to have been, and could I 
have been previously consulted might have suggested several 
alterations and improvements, especially as regards tastes- 



20 HISTORY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 

temper, temperament and facial conformation. However, 
I am thankful I was born a man, or at least a boy. 

"At the age of 21 I shipped as a boy on the clipper 
Wizard, bound from New York for San Francisco, and 
thence to China. Before that I had tried several callings 
and failed in all. My father dying when I was 16, I, the 
only son, became substantially landlord of the hotel which 
he kept. I ran this establishment into bankruptcy in four 
years. Then I essayed an education as a teacher, at the 
State Normal School, and sickened of that after six months' 
experience. I clerked in New York city for a year, and 
was discharged for general incapacity. Then I went ' Out 
West' into an Illinois land o£Eice, where a course of fever 
and ague discharged me. Returning East, I concluded, 
that as the land would not hold me, I would try the sea. 
Hence the Wizard. The sea would not accept me. On 
arriving in San Francisco, the captain called me into his 
cabin, informed me that I was not 'cut out for a sailor,' 
paid me my wages, and sent me ashore to cumber the 
ground of California. 1 counted eggs a few months for a 
living in the warehouse of the Fcirallone Egg Company, 
and then shipped as cook on a whaling schooner bound for 
the lagoons of the coast of Southern California. I could 
cook a very little, and I could not cook a great deal. The 
result was, that the twenty men composing the officers and 
crew of the schooner fared hard for the first three months 
on very hard fare. Culinarily, I was not a Blot, but rather 
a blot on a noble profession. At the expiration of three 
months, I had become so far versed in my calling that the 
usual profanity on account of 'spoiled grub' attendant on 
every meal was lessened one half, and before the voyage 
was up some entire meals were eaten without a curse in- 
voked on my head. The voyage lasted a year. My share 
of the proceeds amounted to $250, which I put in circula- 



APPENDIX. 21 

tion, on landing, as quickly as possible. Then I went to 
the mines. I was landed in Tuolumne County with $18 in 
my pocket and a sailor's bag of clothing, which, among 
other things, contained seven vests. It is a truth, that 
unless a man allows his clothes to wear out equally, his 
vests will always inconveniently accumulate. A single vest 
will outlive five pairs of pantaloons. My first service to 
the community in Tuolumne was rendered at the Golden 
Ranch, a lo 3ality three miles from Don Pedro's Bar and 
three from Hawkins', where the life was knocked out of 
Mexican cows a 3'^ear old, called calves, and other sejjtua- 
genarian, long-horned cattle, whose flesh was termed beef. 
For a few weeks I peddled this beef to the miners of 
Tuolumne. One day the horse ran away and discharged 
the entire freight of beef in the panniers on the golden 
sands of California. ' I picked the steaks up as they fell, 
stacked them in piles on the road, caught the horse, re- 
loaded him, led him to the muddy river, washed the beef, 
and left it, per custom, at the miners' cabins. Next day 1 
was discharged. Then I served a short time at the grocery 
and boarding-house of my esteemed friend, Robert E. Gardi- 
ner, at Hawkins' Bar. After allowing another horse, packed 
with provisions for a mining company, to get away from 
me and wreck the entire load, I sought other fields of labor. 
I worked a bank or surface mining claim for two years, at 
Swett's Bar. It did not pay regfularly, perhaps owing to 
my own irregularities. In 1860 I left this claim and at- 
tempted the education of the turbulent youth of James- 
town. I went to Jamestown full of good intentions, but 
was unable to carry them out; Jamestown at that time held 
too many ' good fellows.' They were recreative, enter- 
taining, genial and congenial, abounding in character, in- 
dividuality, eccentricity, wit, humor, and a keen sense of 
the ludicrous. Ten of the Jamestown men of those days 



22 HISTORY OP TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 

were equivalent to a hundred ordinary mortals, I must 
mention among these J. Y. Dixon, the Postmaster and Ex- 
press Agent, a Louisianian, well educated, and who appre- 
ciated and enjoyed unwritten volumes attendant on the 
exhibition of the strange medley of character about him; 
Dr. Dodge, a gifted man, whose wit and humor inclined 
to the Satanic order; the Sutton brothers — Virginians — 
who could fiddle or shoot with equal skill; Horace Jones, 
poor fellow, killed by a cave in Table Mountain Tunnel, 
who would come to camp and remain sometimes a fortnight 
lest he should ' lose a point ;' Charley Keefe, saloon- 
keeper and constable, who had a broad smile for every- 
body; Jacob Snyder, 'The Count,' who was rei^uted to 
have spoken tolerable English when he first settled in 
Jamestown, but became more unintelligible every year; 
S. B. Minor, an exjjert in drollery and practical joking, 
who, as pure and simple good company, Dixon used to say, 
was worth one hundred dollars a month to any one able to 
afford him; William Lancaster, an original of the originals, 
and a standing contradiction to all the laws laid down by 
the advocates of cold water as a means of health; Charles 
Carroll Brown, a gifted son of Maryland, afterwards Dis- 
trict Attorney, a born orator, a brilliant writer, and always 
full of original and eccentric conception and humor; Bax- 
ter, a companionable man, afterwards stabbed to death in 
the old Sonora Placer Hotel; A. B. Preston, Justice of the 
Peace, mine owner and speculator; James Lunt, Jailer 
under Jim Stuart, a whole-souled fellow; James Stuart, 
himself, former Sheriff of the county, who, coming to 
Jamestown to escape the pressure of political cares conse- 
quent on a residence in Sonora, built for himself a cottage 
where everybody went who could not get accommodated at 
the Jamestown hotels, and where three often slept in 
James Stuart's wide French bed while the host took to 



APPENDIX. 23 

the floor; Elton Baker, druggist, a gentleman and man of 
refined sensibility and taste. 

" Such was the * crowd,' or rather its nucleus, at James- 
town. There were at times accessions from outlying 
camps, but the names T mention above were its pillars, its 
salt. Combined, theirs was an intellectual menagerie. 
Their acts, their sayings, and their history, would, if prop- 
erly chronicled, make a notable book. It needs a Dickens 
or Thackaray to bestow them in the proper setting. 

" After teaching in the District School at Jamestown I 
resigned, probably just in time to avoid being discharged 
by the Trustees. The trouble was not that I was too fond 
of conviviality, but I had then sufficient control over my- 
self in the use of the only element then extant in James- 
town to put things on a convivial footing. However, all 
this was indirectly' a good thing. Living more correctly, I 
might have retained the favor of the Trustees, and so have 
lived and died teaching school. I am sure that all things 
taken together work for our good. 

" Ceasing to be a pedagogue, I again became a miner, 
and again betook myself to the banks of the Tuolumne. 
Bank diggings had then not quite given out. I made from 
six bits to a dollar per day. About this time, owing to the 
success of the coj)per mines at Copperopolis, a copper 
fever broke out in Tuolumne. I took it. I became very 
quickly a copper ' expert.' I discovered any number of 
coj)per mines, ranging from Don Pedro's Bar to Sonora. 
They were valuable mines — to sell. This copper fever and 
my few discoveries, whose value was based far more on 
anticipation than reality, fired me with a grand scheme. I 
organized a company to take up all the ground showing 
' indications ' of copper that we could hold. ' Indications ' 
meant a green or blue stain on the outcropping ledge, or 
the presence of the sulphuret, carbonates or oxides of cop- 



24 mSTURY OP TUOLUMNE C0UN7r. 

per, no matter bow minute in quantity. ' Holding ground' 
meant the pretense of a one day's work per month per- 
formed on a claim. I calculated that I could in this way 
* keep up ' and bold sixty claims per month, and still have 
time left to prospect for more. The company was organ- 
ized at Bob Love's store, in Montezuma. I wrote the con- 
stitution and by-laws. I fitted the company out on paper 
with a president, a secretary, a treasurer and a board of 
directors, and also with a ' prospector.' I was the jDros- 
pector. The prospector was really the company. The 
prospector did all the work, discovered all the claims, kept 
them up, collected all the monthly assessments I could 
from some thirty members, living over an area of territory 
larger than the State of Connecticut, and officiated per 
proxy as president, treasurer, secretary and board of di- 
rectors. I took up and kept up copper and silver mines all 
the way from Coultersville on one side, the Rock River 
Ranch on another, up to the Sierra summits, east of So- 
nera. 

•' The active working force of the company consisted of 
a very poor horse, a very poor dog and very inferior shot- 
gun, whose energies were largely expended at the breech in 
kicking me when I fired, a frying-pan, a coffee-pot, a small 
stock of provisions and a pair of blankets. I obtained the 
loan of the horse for six months in exchange for company 
stock. I believe the saddle was furnished for a similar 
consideration. Tempted, indeed I may say almost forced 
by circumstances, I imitated greater corporations, and 
sometimes added a few drops of water to fertilize the com- 
pany's stock. Transient board for myself and animal I 
sometimes, with some difficulty, managed to settle in this 
way. It was at times Hobson's choice with the landlord, 
for it was all he could get. After these operations I 
avoided those hotels. These irregularities were- the result 



APPENDIX. 25 

of entrusting one man with too much jjovver. I was that 
man. But it was hard and expensive to collect assessments 
when the members of the company were scattered all along 
from French Bar right and left to Eureka Valley, on the 
Summit. 

" Among the more prominent members of my company, 
whose memories with me now rank among my greatest 
earthly treasures, were Dr. Lampson, of Chinese Camp, a 
whole-souled man, full of generosity, good will, and, in 
his profession, good acts for his fellow man, as many a 
miner can testify; David Hayes, my companion while hy- 
bernating during the winter of 1865 in ten feet of snow in 
Eureka Valley, as good and brave a man as ever the East 
sent to the West; Dr. Clark, noted for driving mustang 
teams and absent-mindedness — another being of eccen- 
tric and generous nature, of whom it was told as one of 
the many evidences of his peculiarity that, once buying a 
pair of new boots of a Sonora shoemaker, he, drawing one 
of them on, took the other, and, pairing it ofi" with the dis- 
carded old one, flung the wrongly mated pair into the 
street; Sol. Miller, expiess and news agent at Chinese 
Camp, who, as a mimic and quick catcher of character 
mannerisms, would have made a hit on the stage, though I 
imagine he never suspected his talent in this direction; 
George Evans, and John Bourland, once Sheriff. Had the 
company managed to wriggle through another year, I 
should probably have had half the county holding its 
stock. 

" The company had an active career of about sis months. 
I discovered a great many mines, but none that would pay. 
More than this, I took up land for the company, so 
charmed was I with some of the picturesque valleys which 
I found in the remote fastnesses of the Sierras. They were 
small Yosemites, surrounded by granite walls many hun- 



26 HISTORY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 

dreds of feet in height, abounding in beautiful lakes and 
rich meadows, aj)parently closed on all sides, no place of 
ingress or egress being visible, and studded with noble 
pines and oaks. Influenced at one and the same time by 
the ' love for the beautiful ' and love for cash, I nailed the 
company's notices to the trees, pre-empting these romantic 
spots, on which for seven months out of the twelve the 
snow laid ten or twelve feet deep. 

" There was no money in all this. My soul was eve^ 
much on the heights of sentimentality, but cash lays deeper 
down. The early fall of the high Sierras came on, and from 
them, the early snows obliged me to come out. We all 
came out together. By ' we,' I mean the grizzlies, deer, 
cattle, Indians and myself. The first light snowfall of 
winter abounded with our individual tracks, all making our 
way to the warmer plains below. Such was our yearly 
custom. 

"I brought up that winter at Dave Hayes and John 
Welch's Eanch, in Eureka Valley. There I staid till March. 
The company was bankrupt. When the man who had 
given his very slow horse for six months in exchange for 
stock wanted his horse back, and so obliged the company 
to use its own legs for purposes of locomotion, the final 
crisis was reached and the company was obliged to sus- 
pend. It had discovered much on which to base expecta- 
tion, but absolutely nothing on which to realize cash. 

" I left this mountain abode in March, and set out alone 
on snow shoes for Sonora, fifty-six miles distant. I occu- 
pied three days and nights in getting to Strawberry Flat, 
twenty-six miles from Sonora, meanwhile freezing several 
toes and once taking an involuntary slide of six hundred 
feet down a smoothly frozen mountain side, where I re- 
mained all night at the spot where I was so fortunate as to 
bring up. Had I proceeded a few hundred farther, a few 



APPENDIX. 2T 

pounds of animal organization, known to a few by the name 
at the end of this sketch, would have been resolved by pro- 
cess of decomposition into what we term its original ele- 
ments, for I should have slid off a precipice and been 
broken to pieces. 

"Arrived in Sonora, profoundly ' busted,' I set to work 
digging post-holes for my old and faithful friend Robert 
E. Gardiner, then County Clerk o? Tuolumne. I don't 
think he was very anxious to have post-holes dug on his 
premises, but I do think he allowed me to imagine I was 
earning something m this way out of charity for my condi- 
tion. I alternately dug post-holes and composed a lecture. 
I hadn't the remotest idea of the subject of this lecture 
when I commenced writing it, and I had no very clear idea 
what the subject really was when I finished. Dreading to 
face a real audience at first, I rehearsed it before a private 
one, of my own selection, in the Sonora Court House, one 
evening. Finding that I could really stand fire, and that 
my tongue would not refuse duty in the presence of the 
multitude, as I feared it might, I hired my hall and adver- 
tised mj' lecture. It was a partial success. My critics said 
the matter was good, but the manner of delivery was not. 
'ihey were right, and would be to-day were they to hear 
me again. I starred with this lecture through the county, 
delivering it at Columbia, Jamestown, Summersville, Oak 
Flat, Don Pedro's, and pushing the campaign into Mari- 
posa and Stanislaus, speaking at Coultersville, Mariposa 
and French Bar, I was my own agent, traveled on foot, 
carried my own posters, tacked them up, and depended 
mainly for remuneration on voluntary contributions. When 
in Coultersville, I suggested to the audience that if lacking 
coin they could substitute buttons. Some of them took 
me at my word. Often on arising to speak I felt an anxiety, 
hanging as a heavy weight on my mind, whether the re- 



28 HISTORY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 

ceipts of the evening would suffice to pay a hotel bill which 
I knew could never be liquidated from any other source. 
This also is an experience which tries a man's soul. 

" Daring this lecture season the State election came on. 
A wild impulse seized me to run for the Legislature. I had 
seen scalawags elected to the Legislature, and in this saw 
encouragement that I might be. True, I had no money, 
and not a first-class reputation in some respects; but, then, 
I had everything to gain and nothing to lose. So I an- 
nounced myself and ran. On the all-important day I ap- 
peared before the Democratic Convention in Sonora, made 
a speech which was a farrago of nonsense, and whicb did 
not even prove me. a Democrat or endorse a single plank of 
the party platform; yet I was nominated by acclamation. 
But not elected. Perhaps the county did not wish to lose 
me. 

•■'This attempt on the Legislature of California proved the 
indirect means of my riddance from the county. Some- 
thing of my writings in the Union Democi'at, and something 
more in connection with my legislative canvass had ap- 
peared in the San Francisco papers. This influenced 
Joseph E. Lawrence, editor and part proprietor at that 
time of the Golden Era, to make me an offer to serve on 
that paper. I accepted, and in 1866 ended my connection 
with and baleful influence on Tuolumne. 

" I count, however, my journalistic career as really com- 
mencing one Sunday under a big pine tree on the bank of 
an unnamed rivulet at Red Mountain Bar. I had, with a 
number of other gentlemen resident in that locality, been 
on a spree, and while under the influence of that certain 
loss of self-esteem consequent on excess of any description, 
and which by some is termed ' repentance,' I put my 
thoughts on paper and sent them to the Union Democrat. 
They were published over the signature of 'Dogberry.' I 



APPENDIX. 29 

followed this up with other articles, from time to time, and 
acquired a certain local reputation as a writer, and, I be- 
lieve, a very poor reputation as anything else. 

" Tuolumne County was for me a school. The great 
variety of human nature with which I was brought in con- 
tact seemed as a lesson to be learned. It was a mine of 
most valuable experience, one I have often worked since, 
and never yet bottomed. Life in great cities does not 
afford such opportunities for studying individual charac- 
teristics as does the life of isolated localities of small popu- 
lation. In the Californian 'camp' it became a necessity 
that everybody became more or less acquainted with every- 
body else. Put ten thousand men together, and the 
chances are that within a year's time you won't know more 
than a dozen of them well. Put fifty men together, and in 
a year's time you will know more or less of their individual 
characteristics and the lives of every one of them. All 
this is valuable. It serves as fifty separate lessons in hu- 
man nature. I put knowledge of human nature above the 
education of the college. Show me your successful man 
in business or politics, and I will show you the man whose 
chief study has been that of his fellow man — or woman. 

" Among the distinguished men of Tuolumne with whom 
I have been brought in contact, were Tom Northrup and 
Gideon Thompson, perhaps the most prominent ' old- 
timers, at Ked Mountain Bar. Northrup was a bony giant, 
and counted, in the matter of work on a river claim, a 
' regular horse.' Gid. Thompson was as good a fellow as 
ever was, as all who knew him will testify. He ran the 
Ked Mountain Bar Store till its stock in trade dwindled 
down to a gallon of whisky, and then, packing up his fiddle, 
trudged up the hill, singing, ' What can't be cured must 
be endured. ' 

"At Hawkins' Bar, Munson Van Riper, of the New York 



30 HISTORY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 

Knickerbocker stock, was voted ' our oldest and most re- 
spected citizen.' Munse, in the early days, was counted the 
best cook and housekeeper on the Bar. He used to wash 
his own shirts and sheets. He slept in sheets, which at 
that time was deemed ultra-luxurious. 

" Morgan Davis was another prominent inhabitant of 
Hawkins'. He was for years the custodian of the Hawkins' 
Bar Library, which had been purchased by the ' Boys ' in 
San Francisco — and a very creditable library it was. Often 
have I, at the East, cited this as a proof of the character of 
the early Californians. The prevalent idea in the States is 
that the Californian of that time was a rough, uncouth, 
whisky-guzzling semi-outlaw, when in fact those who came 
from 1849 to 1852 were the very pick of the energy, enter- 
prise and intelligence, not only of the States but of other 
countries. However, California writers and playwrights 
are responsible for this erroneous impression; and it's done, 
and can't be helped. 

"Peter Haldeman, Pennsylvanian, once member of the 
Legislature, and afterwards my ' mining pard,' was a noted 
citizen of Swett's Bar. He was one of the salt of the earth. 
Poor fellow, he rests now, unmarked by a stone, somewhere 
in the Sonora graveyard. Old Jo Gallone, a former Key 
West wrecker, was also long one of the pillars of Swett's. 

" At Indian Bar, in its later days, John Sanborn repre- 
sented its Vanderbilt. H!is big strike in the Indian Bar 
bank, after every one supposed it had been worked out, 
was perhaps the most prominent event in the history of 
that bar so long as anybody was left to preserve its history. 
Alas, how we are scattered, and what gnats we are; here 
to-day, and blown off by the winds of destiny to-morrow. 
But the river, hills and banks remain, though I am now 
even skeptical about calling them ' everlasting.' 

"When Montezuma was a place, the store of Kobert Love 



APPENDIX, 31 

formed the Democratic headquarters, and that of William 
Brown the Republican rendezvous, from which, during the 
heated term of ' The War,' the political sympathizers made 
faces at each other. 

" Ezekiel Brown, long landlord of the Crimea House, 
■was in his time a bright and shining light, especially in 
promoting local mining enterprises. 

With reference to the grade of character and intelligence 
among the earlier Calif ornians, what a notable illustration 
was afforded of this in the flusher days of Sonora. What 
a galaxy of cleverness, talent, quick intelligence, wit and 
humor was found in the following group of men, all resi- 
dent there in 1859: H. P. Barber, the noted lawyer; Dr. 
John Walker, John Sedgwick, Charles Carroll Brown, 
Robert E. Gardiner, George Seckels, A. N. Francisco, 
editor of Ihe Sonora Democrat; Charles Randall, Allen Mar- 
dis. Dr. Franklin, E. R. Galvin, David Hays, Sam Patter- 
son, James Stuart, ex-Sheriff; Caleb Dorsey, — Murphy, 
of the " Long Tom" saloon; Dr. Browne, Dr. Bruner, I. 
J. Potter, Dr. Snell, Fred Brown, the handsome barkeeper; 
Ned Rogers, and many others whose names now escape 
my memory. Why, such a convocation of men was a mass 
meeting all by themselves. Should I neglect also to men- 
tion * Johnny Smith,' the prince of saloon keepers, and the 
insister and promoter of Order Gentlemen, under peculiar 
circumstances and conditions? 

" God bless the old county! In fertility of soil, beauty 
of scenery, a genial climate, and a general capacity for an 
earthly Paradise, God has blessed it already. It needs 
only that man's common sense and industry should take 
up the work where Deity has left off and make it one. 

"Prentice Mulfokd." 



32 HISTORY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 

GENERAL GEORGE S. EVANS. 

Among the many notable present or past residents of old 
Tuolumne, no one has ever occupied a more prominent 
position in public life, and no one has distinguished him- 
self in a higher degree, by the possession of valuable 
qualities of mind and heart, than has the subject of this 
sketch. During a third of a century General Evans has 
continued to retain the respect and admiration of his con- 
temporaries, and now, after long years spent in public ser- 
vice and private enterprise, we find him in possession of 
those valuable mental gifts which have made his career a 
succession of high achievements. 

He was born in Tecumseh, Michigan, in August, 1826. 
Going to Texas in his early boyhood, his youth was there 
passed during the time when the heroic pioneers of that 
State were preparing for the struggle which gave them in- 
dependence from the hated dominion of Mexico. In the 
subsequent period, when Texas constituted a republic, his 
father became a member of the Cabinet of the "Lone 
Star " State. The fortunes of the war, however, drove the 
family from their pleasant home, and in the bloody and 
memorable conflict at Alamo, the brother of young George 
met his death while in command of a detachment. Directly 
after these stirring events had transpired, the subject of 
our account removed to New Orleans, there to attend 
school, and at a subsequent period to enter the dry goods 
store of Thomas Sheldon & Co., and again, at a later date, 
to go into the service of the Western Marine Fire Insur- 
ance Company. 

Somewhat later, when war broke out between the United 
States and Mexico, Mr. Evans, now come to the age of nine- 
teen years, proceeded again to Texas, and enlisted in the 
independent company commanded by the celebrated Cap- 



APPENDIX. 3^ 

tain Ben. McGulloch, and served until the battle of Monte- 
rey, being attached to the regiment of Colonel Jack Hays. 
After the taking of that city, Mr. Evans, with his comrades, 
were disbanded, when he returned to Texas and re-enlisted 
with McCulloch, receiving the appointment of Assistant 
Quartermaster, performing those duties acceptably until the 
company received its final discharge. 

The arts of peace now demanded his attention, and we 
accordingly next hear of him as proprietor of a hotel at 
Saltillo, where he remained not long, going back to Austin 
just at the beginning of the great movement westward to 
the golden hills of California. As might be expected from 
the General's well known activity and love of adventure, he 
at once joined the moving throng, forming a company of 
gold-seekers, who left Austin on March 17, 1849, and pro- 
ceeding westward by way of the Colorado River, touched 
California soil on the 4th of July of that year. Passing 
through Los Angeles, the cavalcade came to Tuolumne 
County, arriving first at Don Pedro's Bar, and going next 
to Wood's Crossing, then the most notable mining place in 
the county, as well as the first discovered. On the 17th of 
August, Mr. Evans entered the town of Sonora, then in the 
very earliest period of its existence. The attractions of the 
new place did not detain him long, for we next hear of him 
mining at Murphy's, in Calaveras County, and later at Pine 
Log, where he, in company with C. M. Radcliff, located 
the well known " Texas" claim, which still bears its early 
name. This was- in the month of October. In the next 
month Mr. Evans sold out his interest in the claim for $16, 
and walked to Sonora, entering there the service of Messrs. 
Green & Holden, and so remaining until the year 1851, 
when the state of his health compelled him to return 
East. 

Spending a year or so in various places in Arkansas and 



34 HISTORY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 

Texas, and having partially recovered his health, he pro- 
ceeded next to cross the Republic of Mexico, arriving at 
Mazatlan, on the shore of the Pacific, whence he came to 
San Francisco in a brig, arriving in the Golden Gate in 
May, 1852. 

Before the great fire of June, 1852, Mr. Evans had re- 
turned to Sonora, and after that disastrous event he en- 
tered into partnership with "Uncle Josh" Holden, and 
erected the American Exchange, a public house, which they 
kept until the following year, when it was burned. In the 
same year he became County Clerk, having affiliated with 
the Democrats. He performed the duties of this office 
until 1855, when he removed to San Francisco, to take a 
position in the Custom House, under Milton S. Latham, 
then Collector of the Port. Since that year the General's 
changes have been so numerous, that the limit to which 
this brief account is necessarily confined will not permit 
more than a hasty mention. 

Becoming Secretary of the Senate in 1856, again County 
Clerk of Tuolumne in the following year, and, at the ex- 
piration of his term, Minute Clerk of the State Senate, 
Under Sheriff of Tuolumne during the administration of 
Dan. Patterson, the proper performance of these duties 
filled up the years until the breaking out of the War of the 
Rebellion, when he became Major of the Second California 
Cavalry, and achieved a war record whose main points are 
as follows: Mustered in at Camp Alert, San Francisco; 
then proceeding to "Wilmington, he established Drumm 
Barracks; removed to Camp Latham, near Los Angeles; 
the next Spring proceeded to Owen's River with a detach- 
ment; fought the Indians successfully; established Camp 
Independence; July 4, 1863, was promoted to Lieutenant- 
Colonel; went to Visalia to put down Southern sympathiz 
ers, leaving Captain T. H. Goodman, now an officer of the 



APPENDIX. 35 

Central Pacific Railway, in charge of Camp Independence. 
The subsequent months were spent in maintaining order in 
the difficult Department of Southern California, and after 
a time Lieutenant-Colonel Evans removed to Salt Lake, 
■when, in consequence of the suspected treason of Colonel 
Simms, the former assumed command, being promoted to 
the Colonelcy of the Regiment and Brevet Brigadier- 
General. His acts during these years belong to the history 
of the military affairs of the nation, and it is sufficient to 
Bay here that the duties that devolved upon him were per- 
formed in the most efficient and praiseworthy manner, re- 
flecting credit alike upon the General and the Government 
in whose service he was. 

Resigning his command in May, 1863, he returned to his 
home in California, and for a time represented the soldiers 
as delegate to the Sacramento Convention which nomi- 
nated Low for Governor of this State. 

Elected now^ to the State Senate from Tuolumne, he held 
the office for four years, then becoming Adjutant-General 
of this State, but resigned to again enter the Senate 
Chamber. After the session he again became Adjutant- 
General, owing to the resignation of the incumbent, and 
he served during the remainder of Low's administration, 
and through the first half-year of Governor Haight's term. 

Removing now from Sonora to Stockton, he continued 
upon his political career, being elected first to the Com- 
mon Council of that city, then Mayor, and finally State 
Senator from San Joaquin County; and at the end of his 
term of four years was renominated by acclamation, again 
to serve in that situation. 

Our account now draws near to the present time. In 
1880 General Evans was appointed Harbor Commissioner, 
by Governor Perkins, and he consequently removed to San 
Francisco, where he has since resided, with his family. 



36 HISTORY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 

Marrying Miss Fannie E. Markham, on August 8, 1857, the 
couple now have six children. 

It would be difficult, indeed, to select a subject whose 
life would furnish a greater store of incident, adventure 
and enterprise to spur the pen of the biographer than that 
of the gentleman under discussion. Living for so many- 
years in the midst of the most active affairs, and being him- 
self one of the most energetic and far-seeing of men, there 
is necessarily an immense deal to recount of which no men- 
tion can now be made. It would also be interesting to 
discuss the future of a life like General Evans', and en- 
deavor to foresee the results to which such qualities of 
brilliancy and persistence may give rise. Even yet in the 
middle of life, as it were, with the fruits of an immense 
experience to guide him, and still in the possession of the 
fullest powers of mind and body, and held in the popular 
estimation as one of the best regarded of California's famous 
citizens, there is every expectation of a future whose suc- 
cesses may infinitely surpass those of the past. 



HONORABLE EDWARD C. MARSHALL. 

In a previous part of this work reference has been made 
to a speech delivered in Sonora in early days by 
Captain E. C. Marshall, which had the effect, it is 
said, of inclining the County of Tuolumne to the side 
of the Democracy rather than to that of the "Whigs. 
Men who heard that speech and who were conversant 
with the acts of the sj)eaker, knowing of his penetrat- 
ing intellect, ready and forcible delivery, and rapid and 
incisive thought, could have prophesied, as many did, a 
future career which should stamp the author as a man of 



APPENDIX. 37 

no common merit and importance. The promise given in 
Sonora in early times has been fulfilled. The Court of 
justice, the halls of legislation, and the political arena, 
have heard the telling eloquence of that voice, and scarcely 
a single inhabitant of this region but has heard the name 
and knows somewhat of the reputation of Hon. E. C. Mar- 
shall. 

This distinguished gentleman is of the celebrated Mar- 
shalls of Kentucky, a family that has produced many per- 
sons of eminence, his brother, Tom Marshall, being of 
national reputation. General Humphrey Marshall is an- 
other name of celebrity which pertains to this family. 

The subject of this memoir was born in Woodford, Ken- 
tucky, in June, 1821. Attending Centre College for a 
time, he afterwards graduated from Transylvania Univer- 
sity at LexingJ;on. At the former institution he met the 
afterwards celebrated statesman and soldier, John C. 
Breckinridge, with whom he participated in the Mexican 
war, taking part in all the battles in which General Scott's 
command engaged subsequent to the capture of Vera 
Cruz. 

Arriving in California in 1S49, via New Mexico and 
Arizona, he reached San Francisco in November, where he 
remained until May of the following year, when he pro- 
ceeded to Sonora, there settling and engaging in the prac- 
tice of his profession of the law. Captain Marshall at 
once took the prominent position to which his abilities en- 
titled him, and turning his attention to politics was elected 
to Congress in the 3fear 1851. This office he filled with 
the most marked ability; returning at the end of his term 
to enter upon the practice of the law at Marysville. In 
1856, Mr. Marshall became a candidate for the position of 
United States Senator, but not being successful in the can- 



38 HISTORY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY, 

vass he removed to Kentucky, and eschewing politics, 
devoted himself to legal pursuits. For twenty-one years 
he pursued his chosen calling with the greatest success, 
demonstrating upon occasion those rare oratorical abilities 
which have given him so much prominence. Even a slight 
allusion to each of those occasions when his voice has been 
eloquently raised at the bar, or in the presence of enlight- 
ened and applauding audiences, would consume more 
space than can here be spared. It is enough to say that 
even among the favored orators of his native State, there 
is no one who stands his superior in the art of convincing 
and logical oratory. 

Proceeding with this brief epitome of the gentleman's 
brilliant career, we note his return to California in 1877, 
and his transference to the bar of San Francisco of those 
qualities which had made his previous fame. Since his 
return to this coast, he has taken high rank among the 
numerous gifted legal minds of that city, and has on many 
occasions asserted the supremacy of bis ripe intelligence as 
' attorney in some of the most important cases ever brought 
to trial m California. As counsel for the People in the 
Kalloch-DeYouug homicide and in the contest of the Mint 
Investigation, where Mr. Marshall acted as attorney for 
General La Grange, his merits show forth conspicuous. 

So well have the peculiar merits of the gentleman been 
recognized, that he became the nominee of the Democratic 
party for the elevated and responsible office of Attorney 
General of the State of California, at the Convention held 
in San Jose in June, 1882. 

Mr. Marshall's domestic relations have been singularly 
felicitous. Marrying, in November, 1852, Miss Josephine 
Chalfant, of Cincinnati, Ohio, a reigning belle of the West, 
his household now contains the wedded pair, together with 
three children: Louis, Fayette and Eleanor. 



APPENDIX. 39 

JOHN B. BACON. 

Mr. Bacon, who is now President of the Tuolumne Re- 
Union, was born in Warrington, Ohio, on the 7th of Sep- 
tember, 1836. In 1851, being then of the age of fifteen 
years, he removed with his parents to Terre Haute, Indiana, 
and after a residence of two years in that settlement came 
to California, lauding in San Francisco in March of that 
year. For four years following he employed himself in min- 
ing, at the end of that time entering the service of Mr. O. 
L, Bemis, with whom he remained for ten years, acting 
also as Stage Agent for C. H. Sisson & Co., of Sonnra. 

Mr. Bacon married Mrs. Johanna Meagher, a native of 
New Bedford, Massachusetts, the pair having three chil- 
dren: Dollie, Birdie, and George. 

As remarked above, Mr. Bacon is President of the Tuol- 
umne Re-Uuion; and respecting this fact it may be well 
stated that that organization was founded in 1868, Mrs. 
Soderer, now of San Jose, and Mr. Dinsmore, of Oakland, 
being the originators. Its object is to give a picnic each 
year, whereat the present and former residents of the County 
of Tuolumne may gather for their mutual improvement 
and gratification. The plan of the founders has been faith- 
fully adhered to for thirteen successive years. The Society 
is organized by the choice of a President, Vice-President, 
Secretary, Treasurer, and Board of Trustees. Those of- 
fices were held as follows during the past year: J. J. Vas- 
concellos. President; J. B. Bacon, Vice-President; W. L. 
Cunningham, Secretary; and H. M. Rosekrans, Treasurer. 
The Board of Trustees was composed of Daniel Sewell, G. 
W. McPherson, J. B. Bacon, J. A. Sampson, C. E. Blake, 
James L. Homer and J. A. Benham. 

The list of the past Presidents of the Association (four- 
teen in number) is as follows; 



40 



HISTORY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 



Dr. W. P. Gibbons. . . .1869 

C. E. McCasker 1870 

J. M. Cavis 1871 

W. G. Dinsmore 1872 

Z. H. Cunningham.... 1873 

L. P. McCarty 1874 

James L. Homer 1875 



Stephen Wing 1876 

C. B. Kutherford 1877 

H. M. Eosekrans 1878 

C. E.Blake 1879 

E. G. Jones 1880 

Fred. Lux 1881 

J. B. Bacon 1882 



Through the kindness of Secretary Cunningham, the fol- 
lowing list of members is presented, together with the 
dates of their arrival in Tuolumne County: 



Joseph Aldridge 1853 

Joseph Armitage 1851 

Thomas Ainsley 1852 

Moses C, Andross 1860 

B. F. Alley 1881 

James Allen 1855 

Oscar AlHson 1850 

L. L. Alexander 1849 

Florin Antoniowich 1850 

W. T. Arnold 1870 

Chas. H. Arnold 1870 

H. G. Austen 1849 

Chas. E. Blake 1850 

John B. Bacon 1853 

David F. Baxter 1856 

David M. Baldwin 1858 

Marie L. Baldwin 1858 

A. K. Benton 1850 

P. B. Bacon 1853 

John A. Benham 1854 

Allen F. Bartlett 1851 

Jas. H. Brooks 1854 

A. C. Bradford 1849 

Fred, Brown 1852 

Henry Balch 1851 



J. P. Banman 1858 

Chas. I. Burks 1856 

David B. Barclay 1877 

Wm. H. Bruuer 1851 

S. Blaisdell 1849 

Jno. A. Brown 1854 

John M. Buffington 1849 

Z. H. Cunningham 1856 

Thos. A. Cochrane 1850 

Chas. H. Chamberlain 1849 

Supan G. Chamberlain 1852 

Wm. H. Chamberlain 1855 

James Craig 1850 

John E. Cary 1849 

William Cullinan 1852 

O. P. Calloway 1850 

Jos. M. Cavis 1856 

R. A. Cunningham 1856 

F. E. Chapin 1857 

D. Cornel 1854 

Wm. G. Dinsmore 1855 

W.E.Dodge 1855 

W. E. Dargie 1859 . 

Wm. A. Davies 1852 

John Duffy 1850 



APPENDIX. 



41 



John D. Bracy 1853 

John B. Douglass 1853 

Thomas Donnels 1850 

James A. Dyer 1854 

M. Dyer 1851 

John Dunn 1854 

M. Drascovich 1855 

Peter Dean 1849 

Chas. F.Dodge 1849 

■William Dnnphy 1849 

T. G. Detlow 1855 

Geo. W.Dent 1852 

W. k. Duchow 1854 

J, G. Divoll 1862 

Mrs. C. W. Drury 1856 

T. L. Darling 1852 

C. L. Ellis 1856 

G. S. Evans 1849 

T. J.Evans 1860 

Chas. H. Eaton 1853 

Eobert Ferral 1854 

Willard T. Fletcher 1853 

William W. Fitzgerald .... 1852 

John M. Faughnan 1849 

John Ferral, Jr 1864 

John Ferral, Sr 1854 

Jas. A. Fuller 1850 

O, P. Fitzgerald 1854 

J. Folansbee 1854 

W. P. Gamble 

Geo. W. B. Green 1853 

W. P. Gibbons 1856 

Wm. F. Goldsmith 1851 

Wm. B. Goodwin 1853 

Geo. Gros 1856 

Kobt. E. Gardner 1849 

Walter Gallagher 1858 

D. V. Gelcich 1854 

M. G. Gillet 1857 

Edwin Grady 1855 



John H. Grady 1855 

Charles E. Hunt 1862 

George A. Hildreth 1850 

Conrad Hildenbrand 1852 

John R. Hicks 1851 

James L. Homer 1849 

Allen Heald 1851 

H. S. Hildreth 1851 

George Hanna 1855 

Frank 0. Hancock 1860 

John K. Hunter 1853 

William F. Hassell 1849 

John Van Harlingen 1849 

J. H. Hurd 1855 

Thomas C. Hogan 1852 

D. W. Eoulton 1851 

Eobert How 1853 

Charles E. Hatch 1851 

George Hager 1849 

Henry Harter 1851 

W. N. Harris 1850 

J. M. Haskell 1856 

George H. H. Haskell 1856 

Francis C. Haskell 1857 

Andrew J, Hatch 1852 

P. J, Ipsen 1852 

E. G. Jones 1856 

E. 0. Judd 1851 

Antoue Johanismann 1858 

Sewell A. Kuapp 1854 

Louis Koster 1849 

Thomas Kent 1850 

Charles H, Klein 

John T. Kelley 1858 

H. fl. Knight 1852 

John E. Klein 1855 

Herbert 0. Lang 1880 

Joel Libby 1851 

A. B. Lawson 1855 

Frederick Lux 1840 



42 



HISTORY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 



Thomas B. Lucas 1856 

Morris Louissou 1854 

Louis Levy 

Herman R. Lenz . » 1852 

E. G. Lyons 1852 

Peter Lesher 1854 

W. H.Love 1852 

John E. Magary 1850 

C. B. McDonald 1855 

Thomas J. Mattison 

C. E. McCusker .'.. 1856 

W. P. Morehouse 1852 

Mrs. Margaret Mehen 1850 

C. L. R. Malt 

G. L. Metzger .....1855 

George H. Morton 1852 

A. D . Miesegaer 1853 

L. P. McCarty 1861 

E. W. Marsten 1852 

M. T. McPherscn 

H. G.Mason 1849 

George W. McPherson 

Daniel Mullen 1858 

E. W. Nottage 1849 

Leonard VV. Noyes 1852 

Benjamin C. Northap 1851 

Charles B. Northap 1854 

N. M. Orr 1856 

A. W. Prevost 1850 

Henry Palmer 1849 

Abner Pitts 1849 

Robert C. Patton 1852 

J. Henry Peters 1 851 

M. W. Parsons 1852 

Ed. Parsons 1856 

L. Quint 1850 

P. B. Quinlan 1857 

C. B. Rutherford 1852 

C. H. Randall 1851 

H. M. Rosekrans 1852 



V. R. Raymond 1849 

Elizabeth Raymond 1854 

W. H. Rulofson 1850 

Isaac Ripperdan 1851 

Frank A. Rutherford 1854 

J. C. Rouse 1853 

George Reed 1851 

Mrs. M. A. Riordan 1850 

George Roddan 1852 

John A. Roy 1854 

George H. Rogers 1849 

Charles M. Radcliff 1849 

R. A. Robinson 1853 

J. W. Rpcard 1849 

A. C. Rulofson 1853 

Theodore Reiser 1856 

Charles L. Stone 1849 

H. S. Stone 1852 

W.L. Sears 1861 

J. T, Smith 1850 

Patrick Smith 1851 

Henry Schuler 1859 

Abraham Sharp 1855 

James B. Stetson 1852 

Peter H. Snyder 1849 

G. Sutkey 

Mrs. N. Soderer 1858 

N. Soderer 1849 

J. A. Sampson 1852 

W. H. Smith 1849 

C. C. P. Severance 1852 

Charles W. Severance 1855 

John Sedgwick 1850 

George Schirra 1849 

P. F. Scott 1854 

F. Sellman 1850 

Daniel Sewell 1859 

Charles Schwilk 

Gus Soderer 1859 

Lyman C. Tibbits 1850 



APPENDIX. 48 

Albert H. Tobey 1860 J. J. White 1856 

Gideon Thompson . . 1852 Peter E. Woodman 1852 

Charles D, Turner 1865 Charles M. Weber 184.1 

Charles B. Turner R. K. Weston 1855 

James Taylor, Jr T, P. Wales 1853 

Joseph J, Vasconcellos 1856 W. Wyckofif 1852 

G. J. Van Vlack 1869 Charles S. Wright 1852 

J. F. Wagner 1850 Allen Wildes 

Stephen Wing 1853 A. C. J. Wilson 1852 

Isabella M. Wing 1856 T. M, Yancey 1850 

Charles C. Wheeler 1857 



JUDGE ROBERT FERRAL. 

The Judge, the details of whose life are familiar to most 
of the former and present residents of Tuolumne and other 
sections of the coast, was born in Philadelphia on October 
13, 1841. Coming- to California a boy, in 1852, two years 
later he arrived in Tuolumne, in 1854. His active life 
began with the commencement of his labors in the printing 
office of the Sonoma Herald, edited at that time by J. J. 
O'Sullivan. After a few months he left that employment 
and entered the office of the Union Democrat, published by 
A. N. Francisco, and so acquired his trade of a practical 
printer . His connection with the last named paper ceased 
in 1862, the last two or three years having been devoted to 
editing it. In that year he went to Aurora, Nevada, and 
became editor of the Daily Times of that town, taking the 
place of E. D. Draper, who had been shot in a duel by Dr. 
W. E. Eichelroth. During his stay in Aurora, Mr. Ferral 
was admitted to practice law by the Hon. George Turner, 
Chief Justice of the Territorial Supreme Court. 

In the Fall of 1863 he removed to Montgomery, Mono 
County, and entered upon the publication of the Pioneer, 
and practiced law in addition to his editorial duties. In 



44 HISTORY OP d?UOLtJMNE COUNTY. 

the year 1865 he removed to San Francisco, and became 
editor of the Irish People newspaper. In 1866 he went to 
Sonoma Connty and edited the Sonoma Democrat, at Santa 
Rosa. In 1871 Mr. Ferral was chosen Chief Clerk of the 
Assembly, and shortly after the expiration of his term he 
proceeded to San Francisco and was appointed Assistant 
District Attorney, and afterwards nominated by acclama- 
tion District Attorney; but was defeated in a close contest. 

Next chosen Secretary of the Senate, and again Chief 
Clerk of the Assembly, Mr. Ferral was finally appointed, 
by Governor Irwin, Judge of the City Criminal Court of 
San Francisco, and was afterwards elected by the people to 
the same ofiice. This tribunal was abolished by the New 
Constitution. Judge Ferral was elected one of the Supe- 
rior Judges, which position he now fills. 

Judge Ferral married in San Francisco some years ago, 
and is the father of a bright little five-year-old, who is al- 
ready widely known in the Western Addition, where the 
Judge resides, as "Bob Ferral," a name which will call up 
familiar recollections to many early residents of " Old 
Tuolumne," 



JOHN F. BOLTS. 

Mr. Bolts, who has seen much of life in Tuolumne, was 
born in Hanover, G-ermany, in April, 1838. Immigrating 
to America in 1853, he resided in New York city until the 
Summer of 1855, when he set out for California, reaching 
San Francisco in July of that year. Going to Tuolumne 
and entering first upon mining as a pursuit he worked suc- 
cessively at Sullivan's Creek (two months), Big Oak Flat, 
Kanaka Creek, which is between Jacksonville and Stevens' 
Bar, and at Spanish Flat (junction of Sonora and Wood's 
Creeks). In the Spring of 1858, the reports of rich strikes 



APPENDIX, 45 

in the far North took him, with hundreds of others, to the 
banks of Eraser River, but, as did all others who could, he 
returned to California within half a year, and again located 
in Tuolumne, and entering into merctntile affairs, kept a 
store on "Washington street, Sonora, between the " Long 
Tom" and Cabazet's Restaurant. His firm was known as 
Schultz & Co. In 1863, Mr. Bolts left Tuolumne and re- 
moved to Alpine County, where for a time he did business 
as a saloon keeper and butcher. In 1869 he set out on an 
eleven-months' tour around the world, which accomplish- 
ing he returned to Alpine, but shortly removed to San 
San Francisco, where he has remained since in business, 
at 907 Market street. 



HON. STEPHEN WING. 

This gentleman, a prominent resident of Columbia for 
eighteen years, but now an officer of the United States 
Mint in San Francisco, has kindly furnished the following 
details of his life : 

Reared in Massachusetts, his birth occurring on February 
16, 1823, Mr. Wing made the Cape Horn passage to Cali- 
fornia in the Winter of 1849-50, arriving in San Francisco 
in the Spring following. The Fall of 1853 found him in 
Tuolumne, where for a year he resided in Jamestown, en- 
gaging in the sale of tinware and stoves. Removing one 
year later to Columbia, he maintained a continuous resi- 
dence there until the year 1872. During these years he 
continued in the hardware traffic, with good success. 
During this prolonged residence Mr. Wing's qualities 
caused his election to several prominent positions of trust. 
Before 1860, while the town was still active and prosperous, 
its citizens chose the subject of this account Trustee of 
their interests, he becoming President of the Board. Dur- 



46 HISTORY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 

ing " War times " the gentleman's patriotic tendencies led 
to his choice as Captain of the military company known as 
the Columbia Home Guards, succeeding Captain A. E. 
Hooker. Still later, in 1868, Mr. Wing became State Sen- 
ator, which office he occuj^ied for two terms. 

After leaving Columbia, in 1873, his history has included 
a year spent in the service of the Government as Assistant 
Assessor of Internal Revenue. In 1873 he commenced to 
reside in San Francisco, receiving at that time his appoint- 
ment as Transfer Clerk of the United States Mint, which 
office he has ever since held. He now resides with his 
wife, nee Miss Mabella Earley, at No. 23 Glen Park Avenue, 
San Francisco. 



JOHN FERRAL. 

John Ferral, father of Judge Robert Ferral, located in 
Sonora in 1854, and for a time kept the old " Young 
America " theater. He was an active, energetic man, an 
able writer, and a ready and powerful public speaker. 
Although never an office-holder, Mr. Ferral took a promi- 
nent part in many political campaigns, and during the 
Know-Nothing excitement met in hot discussion several of 
the ablest representatives of the American party. Mr. 
Ferral, senior, died in San Francisco, July 9, 1882, at the 
advanced age of 82 years. During the last ten years 
of his life he Avas an invalid. 



ALBERT N. FRANCISCO 
The subject of this sketch was a pioneer of " Old Tuol- 
umne," having arrived in the county in the latter part of 
'49 or early in '50. A more genial, pleasant and courteous 
gentleman, in all the relations of life, never came to Cali- 



APPENDIX. 47 

fornia; and the memory of "Little Frank," as he was 
familiarly called, is cherished in grateful remembrance by 
his friends and acquaintances of other days. Mr. Fran- 
cisco was born in Ohio, but went to New Orleans when 
quite a young man, where he was for some j'ears foreman 
of the Picayune newspaper, a leading journal of the Cres- 
cent City. On arriving in our State he settled on Brown's 
Flat, near Sonora, where for several years he followed the 
avocation of a miner. Oftentimes has the writer heard him 
speak in glowing terms of the beautiful appearance of the 
Flat, with its groves of towering trees, before it was torn 
up and washed away by mining operations. In 1854 Mr. 
Francisco began the publication of the Union Democrat, in 
Sonora, continuing the same to the date of his death, which 
occurred in 1867. He was widely known for his noble 
qualities of mind and heart, and will not soon be forgotten. 
He left a widow and one child, a boy, who bears his father's 
name. 

SAMUEL L. CLEMENS (MARK TWAIN), 

Samuel Langhorne Clemens, generally known by his nam 
de plume, " Mark Twain," was born at Florida, Missouri, 
Nov. 3, 1835. At the age of thirteen he was apprenticed 
to a printer, and afterwards worked as such in St. Louis, 
Cincinnati, Philadelphia and New York. In 1855 he went 
down the Mississippi to New Orleans. On his way down 
the river he made friends with the steamboat pilots, and 
was soon qualified to bacome himself a river pilot. In this 
employment he was often directed to " mark twain," that 
is, that there were two fathoms of water, and from this, he 
says, he took his nom de plume. In 1861 his brother was 
appointed Secretary for the Territory, now State, of Neva- 
da, and " Mark Twain" went with him as private secretary; 
then he went to the mines, where, according to his own ac- 



48 HISTOKY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 

count, lie made and lost several fortunes, and for several 
months acted as reporter for Californian newspapers, dur- 
ing which time he visited Tuolumne County. In 1864 
he went to the Hawaiian Islands, where he remained 
six months, and thereafter delivered humorous lectures in 
California and Nevada, In 18G7 he went to the Atlantic 
States, where he published " The Jumping Frog of Neva- 
da," a humorous sketch. In this year he embarked with a 
large number of other passengers 'on a pleasure excursion 
up the Mediterranean, to Egypt and the Holy Land. Of 
this excursion he gave a humorous account in ' ' The Inno- 
cents Abroad" (1869). For a time he was editor of a daily 
newspaper, published in Buffalo, New York, where he mar- 
ried a lady possessed of a large fortune. In 1872 he pub- 
lished " Roughing It," a rather idealized autobiography. 
In 1872 he visited England, giving several humorous lec- 
tures, and a London publisher made a collection, in four 
volumes, of his humorous papers, adding, however, many 
which Mark Twain says were never written by him. In 
1874 he produced in New York a comedy, " The Gilded 
A<Te," which had a remarkable success, owing mainly to the 
personation, by Mr. Raymond, of the leading character, 
" Colonel Mulberry Sellers." Since that time he has pro- 
duced several other dramas, and many humorous sketches 
in the magazines. He resides at Hartford, Connecticut. 



